Indenocarbazole based bipolar host materials for highly efficient yellow phosphorescent organic light emitting diodes

•New bipolar host materials are developed using indenocarbazole donor moiety.•ICBP1 and ICBP2 have excellent photo-physical properties and high triplet energy.•A phosphorescent yellow OLED with ICBP1 host exhibited maximum EQE of 26.4%.

We report bipolar host materials with robust indenocarbazole and biphenyl moiety as hole-electron-transporting unit for phosphorescent yellow organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). New host materials demonstrated an excellent morphological stability with high glass transition temperature of 207 °C. Simultaneously, it also revealed appropriate triplet energy of about 2.6 eV for ideal triplet energy transfer to yellow phosphorescent dopant. A phosphorescent yellow OLED with new host ICBP1 (and ICBP2) and conventional yellow dopant iridium(III)bis(4-(4-t-butylphenyl)thieno[3,2-c]pyridinato-N,C2′)acetylacetonate (Ir(tptpy)2acac) shows a low driving voltage of 3.4 (and 3.6 V) at 1000 cd/m2, and maximum external quantum efficiency as high as 26.4%. Such efficient performance of phosphorescent yellow OLEDs is attributed to a good charge balance and high electron transport properties of host materials.

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