Multihydroxylated aryl amine as a novel alcohol-processable hole-transport molecular glass exhibiting remarkable resistance to weakly polar solvents

•The synthesis of a multihydroxylated small-molecule aryl amine was presented.•The compound shows a contrasting solubility in polar and weakly polar solvents.•It was used as an alcohol-processed hole-transport layer in bottom-anode OLEDs.

Multihydroxylation of a small-molecule aryl amine leads to a contrasting solubility in polar and weakly polar solvents. The resulting compound shows an intrinsic amorphous morphology with a high Tg of 190 °C and is capable of affording uniform smooth and transparent films, spin-cast from 2-propanol. The fitting of the space-charge-limited current characteristics reveals a hole mobility of ∼4.6 × 10−6 cm2 V−1 s−1 at low-voltages. Incorporating this new compound as a hole-transport layer into conventional bottom-anode organic light-emitting diodes that consisted of a solution-processed emitter provides promising performance.

Graphical abstractAlcohol-processable hole-transporting molecular glass.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide