Jie Huaab,
Zhuolin Zhanb,
Zeyuan Chengb,
Wanshan Caob,
Yuan Chaib,
Xufeng Wangb,
Chunyu Weib,
He Dongb and
Jin Wang*ab
aKey Laboratory of Functional Materials Physics and Chemistry of the Ministry of Education, Jilin Normal University, Siping 136000, China. E-mail: jwang@jlnu.edu.cn
bCollege of Information Technology, Jilin Normal University, Siping 136000, China
First published on 30th October 2023
The use of TADF materials as both sensitizers and emitters is a promising route to achieve high-efficiency all-fluorescent white organic light-emitting diodes (WOLEDs). In this study, the thermally-activated delayed-fluorescent (TADF) material DMAC-TRZ (9,9-dimethyl-9,10-dihydroacridine-2,4,6-triphenyl-1,3,5-triazine) was selected as a sensitizer for the conventional fluorescent emitter DCJTB (4-(dicyanomethylene)-2-t-butyl-6-(1,1,7,7-tetramethyljulolidyl-9-enyl)-4H-pyran), which was co-doped in a wide bandgap host of DPEPO (bis[2-(diphenylphosphino)phenyl]ether oxide) to fabricate WOLEDs. For the emitting layer of DPEPO:DMAC-TRZ:DCJTB, the DPEPO host can dilute the exciton concentration formed on the DMAC-TRZ sensitizer, which benefits the suppression of exciton quenching. The effect of the doping concentration of DCJTB on the carrier recombination and energy transfer process was investigated. With an optimized doping concentration of DCJTB as 0.8%, highly efficient WOLED was achieved with a maximum external quantum efficiency (EQE), power efficiency (PE), and current efficiency (CE) of 11.05%, 20.83 lm W−1, and 28.83 cd A−1, respectively, corresponding to the Commission Internationale de I′ Eclairage (CIE) coordinates of (0.45, 0.46). These superior performances can be ascribed to the fact that the hole-trapping effect of the emitter and Dexter energy transfer (DET) from sensitizer to emitter can be suppressed simultaneously by the extremely low doping concentration.
Recently, the rapid development of TADF materials provided a promising route to improve the efficiency of conventional fluorescent-based OLEDs by adopting TADF materials as sensitizers, which promotes the application of all-fluorescent WOLEDs in flat panel display and lighting products.18–23 In TADF-sensitized fluorescent OLEDs, TADF materials with twisted electron donor–acceptor (D–A) structures possess ambipolar carrier transport ability, which benefits the improvement of the carrier balance. On the other hand, TADF as a sensitizer can help to separate the RISC of TADF material and light-emitting of fluorescent materials, and the efficient Förster energy transfer (FRET) from TADF sensitizer to fluorescent guest benefits to achieve excellent device performance. Ma and co-workers reported a TADF-sensitized red fluorescent OLED with maximum EQE of 13.0% using a green TADF material Pr-1 (10,10′-((9-methyl-9H-purine-2,6-diyl)bis (4,1-phenylene))bis(10H-phenoxazine)) as a sensitizer and fluorescent material DCJTB (4-(dicyanomethylene)-2-t-butyl-6-(1,1,7,7-tetramethyljulolidyl-9-enyl)-4H-pyran) as a red emitter.14 Zhao and co-workers reported a series of all-fluorescence three-color WOLEDs based on an interlayer sensitization configuration, successfully acquiring EQE of 30.8% and ultrahigh power efficiency (PE) of 110.7 lm W−1, EQE of 31.0%, and color rendering index of 93.22,23 More importantly, researchers have demonstrated that TADF sensitizer can also act as the emitter simultaneously by modulating the Förster and Dexter interactions, which would contribute to the realization of white light in combination with the complementary emitter.24–26 Song et al.25 fabricated a WOLED adopting the TADF-sensitized single EML consisting of conventional yellow fluorescent TBRb (2,8-ditert-butyl-5,11-bis(4-tert-butylphenyl)-6,12-diphenyltetracene) and blue TADF sensitizer DMAC-DPS (bis[4-(9,9-dimethyl-9,10-dihydroacridine)phenyl] sulfone), realizing maximum EQE of 15.5%. Although some studies have been devoted to TADF-sensitized fluorescent OLEDs, reduction in the exciton loss is still required to be investigated since the triplet excitons on the fluorescent emitter can recombine through nonradiative transitions. Therefore, efforts are needed to understand the carrier recombination and energy transfer process, to realize high-efficiency fluorescent OLEDs and improve the practical applications of the device.
In this study, we selected TADF material DMAC-TRZ (9,9-dimethyl-9,10-dihydroacridine-2,4,6-triphenyl-1,3,5-triazine) with a broad blue emission at about 495 nm as a TADF sensitizer for conventional fluorescence DCJTB and fabricated WOLED with single EML constructed using a wide bandgap host doped with TADF sensitizer and fluorescence emitter. By controlling the doping concentration of DCJTB, high-efficiency WOLED was achieved with a maximum EQE of 11.05%, PE of 20.83 lm W−1, CE of 28.83 cd A−1, and Commission Internationale de L'Eclairage (CIE) coordinates of (0.45, 0.46). The energy transfer mechanism and charge trapping effect in the TADF-sensitized OLEDs are studied in detail.
The current density–voltage–luminance (J–V–L) characteristics, EL spectra, and CIE color coordinates of all the devices were measured using a PR655 spectrometer. The device efficiency (i.e., EQE, PE, and CE) was calculated from current density, luminance, and EL spectral data. The UV/vis absorption and photoluminescence (PL) spectra were collected on a Shimadzu UV-2700 spectrophotometer and a Horiba Jobin Yvon Fluorolog-3 spectro-fluorometer, respectively. All measurements were performed in room temperature without any protective coatings.
Fig. 1 (a) Chemical structures of DCJTB, DMAC-TRZ, and DPEPO molecules. (b) Structure and energy level diagram of the resulting TADF-sensitized OLEDs. |
In TADF-sensitized fluorescent OLEDs, it is important to suppress carrier recombination on the fluorescent emitter and Dexter energy transfer (DET) between the TADF sensitizer and the fluorescent emitter. Both processes are concerned with the doping concentrations of fluorescent materials. Therefore, we first fabricated four devices with different DCJTB doping concentrations in the DMAC-TRZ-sensitized devices. The structure was: ITO/HAT-CN (10 nm)/TAPC (30 nm)/mCP(10 nm)/DPEPO:DMAC-TRZ:DCJTB (1:50 wt%:x, 10 nm)/TmPyPB (40 nm)/Liq (1 nm)/Al (100 nm), in which ITO and Al acted as the anode and cathode, respectively, HAT-CN and Liq were used as the hole and electron injection layers, respectively, TAPC and TmPyPB were chosen to act as the hole and electron transporting layers, respectively, mCP was selected as the exciton-blocking layer. The device structure and the energy level diagram are shown in Fig. 1(b). The high doping concentration (50 wt%) of DMAC-TRZ is necessary to achieve efficient energy transfer and ensure adequate blue emission.32 The doping concentration x of DCJTB was set at 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, and 2.5 wt%, corresponding to devices A, B, C, and D, respectively.
Fig. 2 demonstrates the EL properties of devices A–D with various doping concentrations of DCJTB. The key EL parameters of these devices are summarized in Table 1. The normalized EL spectra (Fig. 2(a)) show that device A exhibits two peaks at 514 (blue-green) and 595 nm (red), which should have originated from DMAC-TRZ and DCJTB, respectively. The relatively low hole and electron mobilities of the DPEPO host result in a relatively high turn-on voltage for all devices A–D.33 With increasing DCJTB doping concentration, the proportion of the blue-green emission from DMAC-TRZ gradually decreases and disappears in device D with 2.5 wt% doping concentration. In addition, owing to the concentration quenching induced by the strong intermolecular interaction of DCJTB, the EL peak of DCJTB is red-shifted from 595 to 620 nm with increasing doping concentration of DCJTB. The presence of blue-green emission from DMAC-TRZ in device A indicates the incomplete energy transfer process from DMAC-TRZ to DCJTB occurs, and the complete energy transfer can be observed in device D with 2.5 wt% doping concentration of DCJTB. However, it is worth noting that with an increasing doping concentration of DCJTB, some device performances such as current density, luminance, and efficiency (PE, CE, and EQE) show a remarkable reduction. As shown in Fig. 2(b)–(d) and Table 1, when the concentration of DCJTB increases, the turn-on voltage (Von) manifests a gradual increase from 3.68 V for 1 wt% to 3.85 V for 2.5 wt%, and the current density at 9 V decrease from 72.9 mA cm−2 to 43.6 mA cm−2. Simultaneously, the maximum luminance, PE, CE, and EQE decrease from 15070 cd m−2, 9.64 lm W−1, 18.42 cd A−1, and 7.15% to 3447 cd m−2, 0.82 lm W−1, 1.82 cd A−1, 1.18%, respectively.
Device | Vona (V) | EQEmax (%) | PEmax (lm W−1) | CEmax (cd A−1) | CIE coordinatesb |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
a Turn-on voltage.b Measured at maximum efficiency and 1000 cd m−2, respectively. | |||||
A (1.0 wt%) | 3.68 | 7.15 | 9.64 | 18.42 | (0.45, 0.46)/(0.44, 0.47) |
B (1.5 wt%) | 3.75 | 4.74 | 5.42 | 10.75 | (0.52, 0.43)/(0.51, 0.43) |
C (2.0 wt%) | 3.79 | 2.29 | 2.07 | 4.32 | (0.58, 0.40)/(0.56, 0.41) |
D (2.5 wt%) | 3.85 | 1.18 | 0.82 | 1.82 | (0.62, 0.37)/(0.59, 0.38) |
W (0.8 wt%) | 3.37 | 11.05 | 20.83 | 28.83 | (0.45, 0.46)/(0.42, 0.47) |
In DPEPO:DMAC-TRZ:DCJTB system, the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) and the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) levels of DMAC-TRZ are −3.1 and −5.6 eV, respectively, which lie within those of the DPEPO, −2.5 and −6.8 eV, respectively. Holes and electrons recombine on DMAC-TRZ molecules directly to form the exciton after exciting optically or electrically, and then quickly transfer energy to DCJTB.21 Thus, we fabricated a device using DPEPO:DMAC-TRZ (1:50 wt%) as EML. Fig. 3(a) depicts the normalized EL spectrum and EQE–J curve. As we expected, the devices emit single blue-green light at 516 nm from DMAC-TRZ, a high EQE of 10.41% can be ascribed to the suppression of the exciton quenching due to which the exciton concentration formed on DMAC-TRZ molecules is diluted by the DPEPO host. Furthermore, the photophysical behaviors of DMAC-TRZ and DCJTB neat films and their co-deposited films were also measured. As shown in Fig. 3(b), a larger spectral overlap between the absorption spectrum of DCJTB and the PL spectrum of DMAC-TRZ suggested that the effective FRET of singlet excitons from DMAC-TRZ to DCJTB can occur, including singlet excitons upconverted from the triplet state on the DMAC-TRZ molecules.34 Moreover, two emissions from DMAC-TRZ and DCJTB can be detected from the PL spectrum of DMAC-TRZ:DCJTB co-deposited films and the emission intensity from DMAC-TRZ is apparently reduced as the DCJTB concentration increases from 1 wt% to 2 wt%. Those results also prove the occurrence of FRET from S1 of DMAC-TRZ to S1 of DCJTB. Fig. 3(c) and (d) show the transient PL decay for DMAC-TRZ and DCJTB neat films and DMAC-TRZ:DCJTB co-deposited film. The transient decay curves of DMAC-TRZ possess the prompt and delayed components with lifetimes of 24.2 and 858.5 ns for the neat DMAC-TRZ film, and 11.7 and 552.6 ns for DMAC-TRZ: DCJTB co-deposited films, respectively. Compared with the neat film, the exciton lifetimes of DMAC-TRZ are significantly shorter when doped with 2 wt% DCJTB (shown in Fig. 3(b)), confirming that an additional decay process is induced by the efficient FRET of the singlet state on DMAC-TRZ, generated either directly or through the RISC process, to the DCJTB singlet state leading to a short lifetime of DMAC-TRZ. The energy transfer rate is calculated using the equation: kET = 1/τD,A − 1/τD, where τD,A and τD are the fluorescence lifetimes of DMAC-TRZ films with and without DCJTB, respectively. kET is calculated to be 3.49 × 107 s−1 for the prompt portion and 6.34 × 105 s−1 for the decayed portion. High kET benefits from the efficient RISC process of the triplet excitons induced by extremely small ΔEST (0.062 eV) of DMAC-TRZ through the upconverted process.35 Additionally, the increase in the exciton lifetime of DCJTB from 1.64 ns for the neat film to 5.88 ns for the co-deposited films (Fig. 3(d)) further manifests that the energy transfer process leads to a rise in the exciton density in DCJTB molecules, which benefits to realize high fluorescence efficiency. Unfortunately, compared with the device with DPEPO:DMAC-TRZ as EML, device A with DCJTB doped in EML of DPEPO:DMAC-TRZ shows low efficiency. Moreover, we did not observe high efficiency in devices B–D with increasing doping concentrations of DCJTB.
To explore the behavior underlying the reduced efficiency, we further fabricated the carrier-only devices to elucidate whether charge carrier trapping processes occur on DCJTB molecules in the resulting devices A–D. The detailed structure of the hole-only device was: ITO/HAT-CN(10 nm)/TAPC (30 nm)/mCP(10 nm)/DPEPO:DMAC-TRZ:DCJTB (1:50 wt%:x, 10 nm)/TAPC (30 nm)/HAT-CN (10 nm)/Al (100 nm), and the structure of the electron-only device was: ITO/Liq (1 nm)/TmPyPB (40 nm)/DPEPO:DMAC-TRZ:DCJTB (1:50 wt%:x, 10 nm)/TmPyPB (40 nm)/Liq (1 nm)/Al (100 nm), in which x = 0, 1 wt% and 3 wt. Fig. 4 shows the current intensity–voltage (J–V) characteristics of the hole- and electron-only devices with different concentrations of DCJTB. When the doping concentration of DCJTB increases from 0 to 1 wt%, the hole current density basically remained unchanged throughout the entire bias range from 0 to 17 V, but an obvious decrease can be observed when the doping concentration of DCJTB further increased to 3 wt% (Fig. 4(a)). This result indicates that in the DPEPO:DMAC-TRZ:DCJTB doping system, the hole trapping effect on DCJTB molecules can occur only when the doping concentration is larger than 1 wt% (x > 1 wt%), but it does not become an effective hole trap at low doping concentration (x < 1 wt%). While similar electron current densities are exhibited in the electron-only devices with various DCJTB doping concentrations from 0 to 3 wt% (Fig. 4(b)), also confirming that the electron trapping of DCJTB molecules is negligible. These can also be explained by the energy levels of the DPEPO:DMAC-TRZ:DCJTB doping system. As seen from the energy level diagram in Fig. 1(b), the LUMO level (3.1 eV) of DCJTB is almost equal to that of DMAC-TRZ, which can effectively suppress electron trapping. However, the HOMO level of DCJTB differs greatly from that of DMAC-TRZ by about 0.3 eV, which will increase the possibility of DCJTB as hole traps. On the other hand, high DCJTB doping concentration would decrease the intermolecular distance of DMAC-TRZ and DCJTB, leading to enhanced DET of the triplet excitons from the DMAC-TRZ sensitizer to the DCJTB emitter, thus restraining the RISC process on DMAC-TRZ molecule. These processes would lead to a certain extent of triplet exciton loss and a reduction in the efficiency of the fluorescent OLEDs at high doping concentrations.
Fig. 4 The J–V characteristics of (a) hole-only (b) and electron-only devices with different concentrations of DCJTB. |
In addition, to further clarify the exciton formation and energy transfer mechanism, the schematic diagram of the energy transfer and emission process is illustrated in Fig. 5. In the DPEPO:DMAC-TRZ:DCJTB system, the exciton concentration can be diluted by the introduction of the DPEPO host. Due to the high dopant concentration of DMAC-TRZ, the injected holes and electrons are mainly formed on DMAC-TRZ molecules, generating 25% singlet (S1) and 75% triplet excitons (T1). For the S1 excitons of DMAC-TRZ, there are three possible decay pathways: (i) the S1 excitons can transform immediately into the ground state (S0) by emitting blue fluorescence. (ii) The S1 excitons can be converted into the T1 state of DMAC-TRZ via the intersystem crossing (ISC). (iii) The S1 state transfer from DMAC-TRZ to DCJTB molecules via a long-range FRET, which can decay and produce red emission. On the other hand, the 75% T1 excitons of DMAC-TRZ can be thermally upconverted into S1 excitons through an efficient RISC process, resulting in the delayed fluorescence of DMAC-TRZ or go through the same FRET process, as mentioned above. Significantly, the direct charge trapping on the DCJTB molecules and unexpected DET between DMAC-TRZ to DCJTB emitter can be effectively suppressed due to the low concentration of DCJTB.36,37 Therefore, the emission of fluorescent DCJTB is dominated by FRET from DMAC-TRZ.
Fig. 5 Energy transfer processes in the DPEPO:DMAC-TRZ:DCJTB system at a low dopant concentration of DCJTB (<1 wt%). |
In order to obtain high-efficiency WOLEDs, we further optimized the doping concentration of DCJTB to 0.8 wt%, and fabricated the device W with EML of DPEPO:DMAC-TRZ:DCJTB (1:50 wt%:0.8 wt%, 10 nm). Fig. 6 shows the EL characteristics of device W, and the EL parameters are also summarized in Table 1. Compared with device A, the blue-green emission intensity from DMAC-TRZ becomes stronger in device W. Furthermore, it forms a balanced white emission together with the red emission from DCJTB (Fig. 6(a)). Fig. 6(b) reveals a reduced turn-on voltage of 3.37 V and driving voltage of 6.26 V at 1000 cd m−2 (4.73 mA cm−2). As shown in Fig. 6(c) and (d), the maximum EQE, PE, and CE of device W reach 11.05%, 20.83 lm W−1, and 28.83 cd A−1, respectively; at a typical display luminance of 100 cd m−2, they remain as high as 9.74%, 15.33 lm W−1, and 25.74 cd A−1, respectively. The high efficiency can be attributed to the fact that singlet excitons of DMAC-TRZ are effectively transferred to DCJTB by the FRET process. Besides, the optimized device W also exhibits excellent EL spectral stability. As shown in the normalized EL spectra under different bias voltage (insert of Fig. 5(d)), the CIE coordinates change from (0.42, 0.47) at 700 cd m−2 (6 V) to (0.39, 0.47) at 7572 cd m−2 (9 V), and the X coordinate changes only 0.03, while the Y coordinate is basically unchanged. The slight increase in the blue-green intensity can be ascribed to the fact that the number of excitons that DCJTB can accept is limited due to the low doping concentration, and the excess excitons of DMAC-TRZ at high voltages were utilized for radiative decay.
This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2023 |