Intramolecular spatial
charge transfer (ISCT) plays a critical
role in determining the optical and charge transport properties of
thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) materials. Herein,
a new donor/acceptor-type TADF compound based on rigid dibenzothiophene
sulfone (DBTS) moiety, STF-DBTS, was designed and synthesized.
Fluorene unit was used as a rigid linker to position the rigid acceptor
and donor subunit in close vicinity with control over their spacing
and molecular structure and to achieve high photoluminescence quantum
yield (∼53%) and TADF property. For comparison purposes, we
constructed the more flexible STF-DPS with a less rotationally
constrained diphenylsulphone (DPS) acceptor instead of the rigid DBTS
units, and STF-DPS showed no TADF properties and lower
PLQY (16.0%). Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) based on STF-DBTS achieve an external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 10.3%
at 488 nm, which is a fivefold improvement in EQE with respect to STF-DPS.