Delayed Fluorescence in a Solution-Processable Pure Red Molecular Organic Emitter Based on Dithienylbenzothiadiazole: A Joint Optical, Electroluminescence, and Magnetoelectroluminescence Study

• Published in: ACS applied materials & interfaces 2015-02, Vol.7 (4), p.2972-2978
• Main Authors: Chen, Ping, Wang, Li-Ping, Tan, Wan-Yi, Peng, Qi-Ming, Zhang, Shi-Tong, Zhu, Xu-Hui, Li, Feng
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1944-8244; 1944-8252
• DOI: 10.1021/am508574m

The discovery of triplet excitons participating in the photoluminescent processes in a growing number of pure organic emitters represents an exciting impetus for a diversity of promising opto, bio, and optoelectronic applications. In this contribution, we have studied a small-molecule dithienylbenzothiadiazole-based red-emitting dye red-1b, which shows clearly delayed fluorescence under optical and electrical excitation. The OLED device that contained red-1b as a nondoped solution-processable emitter exhibited a moderately high utilization of exciton amounting to ≈31% and slow efficiency roll-off. Magnetoelectroluminescence measurements revealed the coexistence of reverse intersystem crossing from the lowest triplet state to singlet state (RISC, E-type triplet to singlet up-conversion) and triplet–triplet annihilation (TTA, P-type triplet to singlet up-conversion). Specifically, in low current-density regime, the moderately high exciton utilization is attributed to RISC (i.e., thermally activated delayed fluorescence, TADF), whereas in high current-density regime, TTA may contribute to suppressing efficiency roll-off. Furthermore, the results showed that red-1b may represent a new kind of organic red emitters that display delayed fluorescence in a way differing from the few red emitters investigated so far.