Triphenylethylene-based emitters exhibiting aggregation induced emission enhancement and balanced bipolar charge transport for blue non-doped organic light-emitting diodes

Abstract New triphenylethylene-based derivatives, containing 2,6-di-tert-butylcarbazole or 9,9-dimethyl-9,10-dihydroacridine as donor moieties and phenylene or tetrafluorophenylene linking bridges were synthesised by Heck coupling and characterized. The synthesized compounds emitted blue light in the solid state with emission maxima in the range of 478–487 nm and photoluminescence quantum yields of 16–29%. In thermogravimetric analysis they demonstrated sublimation with 5% weight loss temperatures in the range of 307–355 °C. They exhibited glass-forming properties with glass-transition temperatures of 89–123 °C. The solid-state ionization potentials and electrochemical band gaps ranged from 5.88 to 6.37 eV and from 3.30 to 3.57 eV, respectively. Three compounds demonstrated bipolar semiconducting properties. Derivative of triphenylethylene and 2,6-di-tert-butylcarbazole with phenylene bridge showed highest hole and electron drift mobilities reaching 3.07 × 10−3 cm2/Vs and 4.2 × 10−3 cm2/Vs respectively at high electric field. Utilizing compounds in organic light‐emitting diodes as emitters external quantum efficiency of 2% was observed.