A new compound, 2,2 0 -dimethyl-3,3 0 ,5,5 0 -tetrakis(p-tolyldiamino)biphenyl (DTTAB), was synthesized and investigated as a hole-transporting material for organic light-emitting diodes. The luminous efficiency of electroluminescent device was improved by using DTTAB instead of NPB at lower driving voltage, suggesting that the DTTAB layer can efficiently accept holes from the hole-injecting layer and transport holes into an adjacent emitting layer.Since the first report of multilayered organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), many studies focused on improving device efficiency and enhancing the durability of OLEDs.1 Particularly hole-transporting material is one of the significant factors of the device performance. For the hole-transporting layer, high thermal stability, especially high T g of above 100C, good holetransport ability, excellent film formability are essentially needed. A number of hole-transporting materials based on aromatic amine structure have been reported so far. Because of their good solid film-forming capabilities, various triarylamine derivatives have been utilized as hole-transporting materials.2-4 Recently, considerable efforts have been devoted to the development of new amorphous triarylamines possessing high morphologic stability.5-10 Certain tetraaminobiphenyl derivatives are known to have photoconductive properties. They have been used for electrophotographic applications.11 Despite the relatively good charge-transporting properties of tetraaminobiphenyls now known, no hole-transporting properties for OLEDs have yet been reported. In this study, we synthesized a novel amorphous compound, 2,2 0 -dimethyl-3,3 0 ,5,5 0 -tetrakis(p-tolyldiamino)biphenyl (DTTAB) as a hole-transporting materials with higher glasstransition temperature. We report here the preparation and properties of DTTAB and the application for the EL device.According to the literature, tetraaminobiphenyls can be obtained from tetrahydroxybiphenyl, primary arylamine, and aryl halide.11 In this case, the coupling reaction of the arylhydroxybiphenyl and arylamines was not so convenient. We have found the more efficient amination reaction by using palladium catalyst. The general synthetic routes to tetraaminobiphenyls are outlined in Scheme 1. For the amination reaction, 2,2 0 -dimethyl-3,3 0 ,5,5 0 -tetrabromobiphenyl (1) was synthesized by the lithiation of 2,4,6-tribromotoluene following oxidative coupling.
12DTTAB was successfully prepared from 1 and di-p-tolylamine in toluene in the presence of Pd 2 (dba) 3 /P(t-Bu) 3 /NaOt-Bu at 110 C. 13 The palladium catalyst is very effective, giving the corresponding tetraaminobiphenyl product in good yield with only a low amount of the palladium catalyst. The thermal stability data of 2,2 0 -dimethyl-3,3 0 5,5 0 -tetraaminobiphenyl (DTTAB) was investigated by differential scanning calorimetry and thermogravimetric analysis: The results were summarized in Table 1 with the most well-known hole-transporting materials TPD and NPB for comparison.As shown in Table 1, DTTAB has higher val...