Optical and amplified spontaneous emission of neat films containing 2-cyanoacetic derivatives

During the last two decades, small organic molecules have been widely studied for potential applications in organic solid-state lasers due to low-cost production, simple processing possibility and physical property tuning ability through chemical structure synthetic modifications. One of the most investigated and applied compound in dye lasers is 4- (dicyanomethylene)-2-methyl-6-(4-dimethylaminostyryl)-4H-pyran (DCM). It has shown remarkable properties as a dye in solid-state lasers. One of the drawbacks of this compound is high intermolecular interactions which reduce emission efficiency. Therefore it can be applied only in doped systems in low concentration (around 2 wt%). Recently we have demonstrated that incorporation of bulky triphenyl groups in the low molecular mass organic compounds enables the ability to form good optical quality transparent glassy films by solution processing. Additional such bulky groups reduce intermolecular interaction thus increase photoluminescence quantum yield in the thin film. In the presentation, we will show optical properties of new 2-cyanoacetic derivatives where two different bulky groups (9H-carbazole fragment and triphenyl group) are attached to molecule electron donating and accepting parts. Synthesized compounds have light absorption from 400nm to 600nm and photoluminescence from 600 nm up to 800 nm. Dyes with only one incorporated electron donating fragment showed 16% PLQY and ASE excitation threshold values (below 52 μJ/cm²) in neat thin films. Two electron donating fragment containing molecules have PLQY of 7% and ASE excitation threshold 223 μJ/cm².