Helicenes as All-in-One Organic Materials for Application in OLEDs: Synthesis and Diverse Applications of Carbo- and Aza[5]helical Diamines

A set of eight helical diamines were designed and synthesized to demonstrate their relevance as all-in-one materials for multifarious applications in organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), that is, as hole-transporting materials (HTMs), EMs, bifunctional hole transporting + emissive materials, and host materials. Azahelical diamines function very well as HTMs. Indeed, with high T-g values (127-214 degrees C), they are superior alternatives to popular N,N'-di(1-naphthyl)-N,N'-diphenyl-(1,1'-biphenyl)-4,4'-diamine (NPB). All the helical diamines exhibit emissive properties when employed in non-doped as well as doped devices, the performance characteristics being superior in the latter. One of the carbohelical di-amines (CHTPA) serves the dual function of hole transport as well as emission in simple double-layer devices; the efficiencies observed were better by quite some margin than those of other emissive helicenes reported. The twisting endows helical diamines with significantly high triplet energies such that they also function as host materials for red and green phosphors, that is, [Ir(btp)(2)acac] (btp = 2-(2'-benzothienyl)pyridine; acac = acetylacetonate) and [Ir(ppy)(3)] (ppy = 2-phenylpyridine), respectively. The results of device fabrications demonstrate how helicity/helical scaffold may be diligently exploited to create molecular systems for maneuvering diverse applications in OLEDs.