Up to now, the most efficient blue phosphorescent organic lightemitting diode (PhOLED) was achieved with a maximum external quantum efficiency (η ext ) of 34.1% by using an exciplex cohost. It still remains a challenge to obtain such high efficiencies using a single-host matrix. In this work, a highly efficient sky-blue PhOLED is successfully fabricated using a newly developed bipolar host material, namely 5-(2-(9H-[3,9′-bicarbazol]-9-yl)phenyl)nicotinonitrile (o-PyCNBCz), which realizes a η ext of 29.4% at a practical luminance of 100 cd m −2 and a maximum η ext of 34.6% (at 23 cd m −2 ). The present device is characterized by simple configuration with a single host and single emitting layer. o-PyCNBCz also reveals high efficiency of 28.2% (94.8 cd A −1 ) when used as the host for green PhOLED. Under identical conditions, o-PyCNBCz always outperforms than its isomer 3-PyCNBCz (5-(9-phenyl-9H-[3,9′-bicarbazol]-6-yl)nicotinonitrile) in terms of more balanced charge transportation, higher photoluminescent quantum yields of over 90%, and higher horizontal orientation ratio of the emitting dipole for the host-dopant films, which finally lead to its superior performance in PhOLEDs. It is observed that all these merits of o-PyCNBCz benefit from its ortho-linking style of carbazole (p-type unit) and cyanopyridine (n-type unit) on the phenylene bridge and the resultant molecular conformation.
The direct linking of dual n-type units is developed to design novel host materials for improved performance of blue and green phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes.
Low driving voltage and high power efficiency are basic requirements when practical applications of organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) in displays and lighting are considered. Two novel host materials m-PyCNmCP and 3-PyCNmCP incorporating cyanopyridine moiety as electron-transporting unit are developed for use in fac-tris(2-phenylpyridine)iridium(III) (Ir(ppy)3) based green phosphorescent OLEDs (PhOLEDs). Extremely low turn-on voltages of 2.01 and 2.27 V are realized, which are even lower than the theoretical limit of the emitted photon energy (hv)/electron charge (e) (2.37 V) of Ir(ppy)3. High power efficiency of 101.4 lm/W (corresponding to a maximum external quantum efficiency of 18.4%) and 119.3 lm/W (24.7%) are achieved for m-PyCNmCP and 3-PyCNmCP based green PhOLEDs. The excellent EL performance benefits from the ideal parameters of host materials by combining cyano and pyridine to enhance the n-type feature. The energetic favorable alignment of HOMO/LUMO levels of hosts with adjacent layers and the dopant for easy charge injections and direct charge trapping by dopant, their bipolar feature to balance charge transportations, sufficiently high triplet energy and small singlet/triplet energy difference (0.38 and 0.43 eV) combine to be responsible for the extremely low driving voltages and high power efficiencies of the green PhOLEDs.
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