Through-space charge transfer in luminophore based on phenyl-linked carbazole- and phthalimide moieties utilized in cyan-emitting OLEDs

Two new carbazole-containing aromatic imides were synthesized by three-step synthetic pathway with the moderate yields up to 76%. The compounds were investigated theoretically. TD-DFT computational studies revealed low singlet-triplet energy differences. The compounds were found to have relatively high thermal stability with 5% mass loss temperatures in the range of 280–310 °C. Phthalimide-based compound exhibited aggregation-induced emission enhancement and thermally activated delayed fluorescence with photoluminescence quantum efficiency of 20% in the solid state. Structure-properties relationship of this compound was investigated and it was found that charge-transfer through space mechanism is responsible for the emission. Series of green-emitting doped and non-doped electroluminescent devices were fabricated based on the carbazole-phthalimide derivative were fabricated to reveal best-performing mCP-doped device demonstrating maximum external quantum efficiency of 2.4% with current efficiency of 6.6 cd/A and power efficiency of 4.0 lm/W with maximum brightness of 8300 cd/m².