Sandwich-type thermally activated delayed fluorescence molecules with through-space charge transfer excited state for red OLEDs

Exploring through-space charge transfer (TSCT) excited state for the design of thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) emitters has been receiving increasing interest for organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). In this work, we developed two TSCT-TADF molecules, namely 2DPXZ-QX and 2DPXZ-DFQX, which have sandwich-type donor-acceptor-donor (D-A-D) structures supported by two carbazole bridges. Dibenzo[a,c]phenazine (QX) and its fluorinated derivative (DFQX) were used as the acceptors and O-bridged triphenylamine (DPXZ) was used as the donor. The two donors and acceptor in each molecule are aligned in a face-to-face orientation and thus result in the presence of intramolecular π–π interactions, as revealed by their single crystal X-ray structures. The emission maxima (λPL) of 2DPXZ-QX and 2DPXZ-DFQX in doped 1,3-bis(N-carbazolyl)benzene films are 595 and 600 nm with photoluminescence quantum yields of 67 % and 54 %, respectively. The delayed fluorescence lifetimes are 8.8 and 6.7 μs. OLEDs based on the new sandwich-type emitters show maximum external quantum efficiencies of up to 19.1 %.