Development of Efficient, Stable and Inexpensive Deep-Red and Near-Infrared OLEDs Based On AIE-Active Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence Emitters.

Thermally activated delayed fluorescent (TADF) emitters offer an exciting opportunity to produce efficient organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) by overcoming the spin-statistics limit of fluorescent emitters.

Although, TADF-OLEDs have proven to be very successful in the visible spectral region, the development of efficient TADF emitters remains challenging for the deep-red (DR, 650-700 nm) and Near-Infrared NIR (< 700 nm) region due to significantly slower radiative decay rates and faster non-radiative decay rates.

Such DR/NIR emitting OLEDs can enable new applications in bioimaging, photodynamic therapy, night vision technology, information-secured displays, and optical communication. We propose to develop efficient and inexpensive DR/NIR OLEDs based on purely organic TADF-emitters.

Our design consists of a yet unexplored aggregation-induced emission (AIE)-active boron diiminate (BDI) electron acceptor coupled with suitably strong dendritic electron donors.

The use of highly efficient AIE-active emitters will significantly enhance the brightness of the emitter by suppressing non-radiative decay, thereby leading to a much-improved efficiency in the device.