Design strategy of yellow thermally activated delayed fluorescent dendrimers and their highly efficient non-doped solution-processed OLEDs with low driving voltage

•We designed and synthesized two dendrimers TA-Cz and TA-3Cz with TADF characteristics.•The introduction of the phenyl bridge is a promising route to simultaneously achieve small ΔEST and enhanced PLQYs.•Our results here provide a facile strategy to obtain highly efficient non-doped solution-processed OLEDs.

We designed and synthesized two dendrimers TA-Cz and TA-3Cz with TADF characteristics by using non-conjugated aliphatic chains carbazole/tricarbazole as peripheral dendrons. Both dendrimers possess excellent thermal and morphological stabilities. Introduced the phenyl bridge to increase the distance of the emission core TA between donor (D) and acceptor (A) is a promising route to simultaneously achieve small singlet-triplet energy splitting (ΔEST) and enhanced PL quantum yields (PLQYs). Furthermore, non-conjugated aliphatic chains carbazole/tricarbazole dendrons were conveniently introduced to the TADF core, which can effective encapsulate the emission core to restrain the concentration quenching effect and make the fluorescence of the core independent. By utilizing TA-3Cz emitter as the non-doped solution-processed emissive layers, the resulting yellow OLED achieved low driving voltage of 2.4 V and superior external quantum efficiency of 11.8%. Thus, our results here provide a facile strategy to obtain highly efficient non-doped solution-processed OLEDs by employing the reasonable molecular design of the TADF core and the utilization of flexible alkyl chain.

Graphical abstractOur researches present a judicious design strategy for highly efficient non-doped solution-processable TADF emitters by employing the reasonable molecular design of the TADF core and the utilization of flexible alkyl chain.Download high-res image (205KB)Download full-size image