Carbene-metal complexes as molecular scaffolds for construction of through-space TADF emitters

Abstract

Through-space charge transfer (CT) process is observed in Cu(I) carbene-metal-amide complexes, where conventional imidazole or imidazoline N-heterocyclic (NHC) carbene fragments act as inert linkers and CT proceeds between a metal-bound carbazole donor and a distantly situated carbene-bound phenylsulfonyl acceptor. The resulting electron transfer gives a rise to efficient thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF), characterized with high photoluminescence quantum yields (ΦPL up to 90 %) and radiative rates (kr) up to 3.32×105 s-1. TADF process is aided by fast reverse intersystem crossing (rISC) rates of up to 2.56×107 s-1. Such emitters can be considered as hybrids of two existing TADF emitter design strategies, combining low singlet-triplet energy gaps (ΔEST) met in all-organic exciplex-like emitters (0.0062−0.0075 eV) and small, but non-negligible spin-orbital coupling (SOC) provided by Cu atom, like in TADF-active organometallic complexes.