Anthracene-based blue fluorescence materials utilized in non-doped OLEDs with high luminance and a low efficiency roll-off

In this work, we designed and synthesized two novel blue-emitting compounds (m-TAC and p-TAC) with a twisted D-π-A configuration by incorporation of 2,4,6-triphenyl-1,3,5-triazine as an acceptor and carbazole as a donor through an anthracene π-spacer. Therein, p-TAC exhibits a hybridized local and charge-transfer (HLCT) characteristic with a sky-blue emission at 462 nm in toluene while m-TAC shows emission maximum at 431 nm. The two compounds exhibit superb thermal stability in the company of a thermal decomposition temperature (Td) as high as 507 and 516 °C. It is noticed that the non-doped devices with m-TAC and p-TAC as blue emitters display a turn-on voltage (Von) of 3.2 V and achieve sky-blue emission at 460 and 476 nm. In particular, the optimized device based on p-TAC realizes a maximum luminance above 10 000 cd m−2 and the maximum external quantum efficiency (EQEmax) reaching 5.03%. As a sky-blue HLCT emitter, p-TAC reveals high-efficiency electroluminescence (EL) performance, providing a new insight for further industrial applications.