Incorporation of Fluorene and Its Heterocyclic Spiro Derivatives To Realize High-Performance and Stable Sky-Blue-Emitting Arylgold(III) Complexes

• Published in: ACS applied materials & interfaces 2021-12, Vol.13 (48), p.57673-57683
• Main Authors: Lo, Lianne Hei-Yin, Tang, Man-Chung, Lai, Shiu-Lun, Cheung, Wai-Lung, Li, Lok-Kwan, Ng, Maggie, Chan, Hin-Ting, Chan, Mei-Yee, Yam, Vivian Wing-Wah
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Organic Electronic Devices
• ISSN: 1944-8244; 1944-8252
• DOI: 10.1021/acsami.1c15891

A series of arylgold­(III) complexes of tridentate diphenylpyridine ligand incorporated with fluorene and its heterocyclic spiro derivatives, spiro­[fluorene-9,9′-xanthene] and spiro­[acridine-9,9′-fluorene], as auxiliary ligands has been prepared. This class of complexes exhibits high decomposition temperatures of up to 387 °C, excellent film morphologies in solid-state thin films with a root-mean-square roughness smaller than 0.20 nm, as well as high photoluminescence quantum yields of up to 0.72 in solid-state thin films. Solution-processed organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs) fabricated from this series of complexes as dopants show intense electroluminescence in the sky-blue region with maximum external quantum efficiencies of 10.0%. Taking advantage of their high thermal stability, vacuum-deposited OLEDs have also been fabricated and satisfactory operational lifetimes of ∼300 h have been recorded.