Sulfur Lone Pairs Open Avenues for π* → n Orange-to-Red TADF and OLEDsShow others and affiliations
2025 (English)In: Journal of the American Chemical Society, ISSN 0002-7863, E-ISSN 1520-5126Article in journal (Refereed) Epub ahead of print
Abstract [en]
It is always important and fascinating to explore new organic emitters that exploit unconventional pathways to unveil their emission with unique properties, such as thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF). In this study, we report that the rarely explored sulfur lone pair (n) is a promising alternative, where the correlated pi* -> n emission can be used to attain strong TADF and thus practical OLEDs. The designed strategy incorporates several key concepts (Figure 1a), in which the persulfide aromatic spirocycle enhances spin-orbit coupling, thereby increasing the intersystem crossing rate. Next, molecules with a twisted donor-acceptor configuration bridged by spiro[4.4]nonane as well as spatially orthogonal sulfur lone pairs and pi* features significantly reduce the singlet-triplet gap. Finally, the rigid spirocyclic backbone inhibits nonradiative transitions. The proof-of-concept is given by compound 1, which achieves n pi* thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) maximized at 635 nm with photoluminescence quantum yields as high as 52% in CH2Cl2. Wet-processed OLEDs containing 1 achieved a maximum external quantum efficiency of 6.4% at a brightness of 189 cd m-2 (similar to 600 nm), opening an alternative 1n pi* route for practical pi* -> n TADF OLEDs.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
AMER CHEMICAL SOC , 2025.
National Category
Other Basic Medicine
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-211582DOI: 10.1021/jacs.4c18235ISI: 001411200500001PubMedID: 39885676Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85216710697OAI: oai:DiVA.org:liu-211582DiVA, id: diva2:1936496
Note
Funding Agencies|HORIZON EUROPE European Research Council [22405053, 22275038, 22304089]; National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) [NSTC-113-2639-M-002-001-ASP]; National Science and Technology Council, R.O.C; United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) Fellowship [2024-05286]; Swedish Research Council [2009-00971]; Swedish Government Strategic Research Area in Materials Science on Advanced Functional Materials at Linkoping University [101077649]; European Union (ERC)
2025-02-112025-02-112025-02-11