A new class of hole-transporting spirothioxanthene derivatives has been synthesized and characterized. Their photophysical, electrochemical and thermal properties have been studied. These compounds exhibit high hole mobilities of up to 1 × 10–3 cm2 V–1 s–1, determined by using thin film transistor technique. In addition, these spirothioxanthene derivatives are promising donor materials in the construction of high performance organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices. With a very low dopant concentration of 7%, highly efficient small molecule-based OPV devices with high short-circuit current density of 10.83 mA cm–2, open-circuit voltage of 0.94 V, and high power conversion efficiency of 5.40% (the highest PCE of 5.46%) have been realized.

A series of heterocyclic spiro derivatives has been successfully synthesized and characterized by photophysical and electrochemical studies. Taking advantage of their excellent hole-transporting properties, highly efficient small-molecular organic photovoltaic devices based on these heterocyclic compounds as donors with very low dopant concentrations have been prepared; particularly, a high open-circuit voltage of up to 1.10 V and a power conversion efficiency of up to 5.12% have been realized. In addition, most of these heterocyclic spiro derivatives are found to be highly emissive in solutions with photoluminescence quantum yields of up to 0.91, and high-performance deep-blue-emitting organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) have been achieved. Such devices exhibit a stable deep blue emission with CIE coordinates of (0.16, 0.04) and high external quantum efficiencies of up to 4.7%, which is one of the best values among the reported OLEDs with CIEy < 0.08.

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