Thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) is one of the most intriguing and promising discoveries towards realization of highly‐efficient organic light emitting diodes (OLED) utilizing small molecules as emitters. It has the capability of manifesting all excitons generated during the electroluminescent processes, consequently achieving 100 % of internal quantum efficiency. Since the report of the first efficient OLED based on a TADF small molecule in 2012 by Adachi et al., the quest for optimal TADF materials for OLED application has never stopped. Various TADF molecules bearing different design concepts and strategies have been designed and produced, with the aim to boost the overall performances of corresponding OLEDs. In this minireview, the general principles of TADF molecular design based on three basic categories of TADF species: twisted intramolecular charge transfer (TICT), through‐space charge transfer (TSCT) and multi‐resonance induced TADF (MR‐TADF) are discussed in detail. Several key aspects with respect to each category, as well as some effective methods to enhance the efficiency of TADF materials and corresponding OLEDs from the molecular engineering perspectives, are summarized and discussed to exhibit a general landscape of TADF molecular design to a wide variety of scientific researchers within this particular disciplinary area.

To boost intrinsic circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) properties of chiral emitters, an axially chiral biphenyl unit is inlaid in thermally activated delayed fluorescent (TADF) skeleton, urging the participation of chiral source in frontier molecular orbital distributions. A pair of enantiomers, ( R )‐BPPOACZ and ( S )‐BPPOACZ, containing the cyano as electron‐withdrawing moieties and carbazole and phenoxazine as electron‐donating units are synthesized and separated. The circularly polarized TADF enantiomers exhibit both high photoluminescence quantum yield of 86.10% and excellent CPL activities with maximum dissymmetry factor | g PL | values of almost 10 −2 in solution and 1.8 × 10 −2 in doped film, which are among the best values of previously reported small chiral organic materials. Moreover, the circularly polarized organic light‐emitting diodes based on the TADF enantiomers achieve the maximum external quantum efficiency of 16.6% with extremely low efficiency roll‐off. Obvious circularly polarized electroluminescence signals with | g EL | values of 4 × 10 −3 are also recorded.

Direct emission of circularly polarized light from organic lightemitting diodes (OLEDs) is a research hotspot as it could increase the efficiency and significantly simplify device architecture of OLED-based 3D displays. In this study, R/S-OBS-Cz and R/S-OBS-TCz with axial chirality were efficiently prepared by using a stable chiral octahydro-binaphthol unit, carbazole/3,6-ditert-butylcarbazole donors, and a 5,5,10,10-tetraoxide acceptor. The chiral unit-acceptor−donor structure provides them not only thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) characteristics with minor singlet− triplet energy gaps of 0.04 and 0.05 eV but also obvious circularly polarized photoluminescence (CPPL) phenomenon with dissymmetry factors of 8.7 × 10 −4 and 6.4 × 10 −4 in codoped films. Meanwhile, the CP-OLEDs prepared by enantiomers exhibit good device performances with the maximum external quantum efficiency reaching 20.3% and ideal efficiency roll-off as well as obvious CPEL properties with a |g EL | factor up to 1.0 × 10 −3 .

Chiral boron/nitrogen doped multiple resonance thermally activated delayed fluorescence (MR‐TADF) emitters are promising for highly efficient and color‐pure circularly polarized organic light‐emitting diodes (CP‐OLEDs). Herein, we report two pairs of MR‐TADF materials (Czp‐tBuCzB, Czp‐POAB) based on planar chiral paracyclophane with photoluminescence quantum yields of up to 98 %. The enantiomers showed symmetric circularly polarized photoluminescence spectra with dissymmetry factors |gPL| of up to 1.6×10−3 in doped films. Meanwhile, the sky‐blue CP‐OLEDs with (R/S)‐Czp‐tBuCzB showed an external quantum efficiency of 32.1 % with the narrowest full‐width at half‐maximum of 24 nm among the reported CP‐OLEDs, while the devices with (R/S)‐Czp‐POAB displayed the first nearly pure green CP electroluminescence with |gEL| factors at the 10−3 level. These results demonstrate the incorporation of planar chirality into MR‐TADF emitter is a reliable strategy for constructing of efficient CP‐OLEDs.

Circularly polarized organic light-emitting diodes (CP-OLEDs) have received considerable attentions due to their promising applications in 3D displays. However, up to now, CP-OLEDs using iridium(III) phosphors as emissive dopants, exhibited...

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Three green iridium(iii) complexes were rapidly synthesized at room temperature with a sulfur-containing ligand, and OLEDs fabricated using them show high performances with EQEmax of 31.24% and low efficiency roll-off.

Two novel iridium(iii) complexes containing the electron-transporting group of 4-phenyl-4H-1,2,4-triazole exhibited good photoluminescence and electroluminescence performances with an EQE of 31.43% and a mild efficiency roll-off.