Combining the Merits of Carbazole and Tetraphenyl Silane towards Desirable Main Chain for Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence Polymers

Thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) polymers have attracted considerable interests for spin-coated electroluminescent devices. Inspired by the side chain engineering strategy for developing highly efficient TADF polymers, a series of green TADF polymers with varying ratios of TADF moiety dangled at the side chain, namely P3-P12 were designed and synthesized. The copolymer main backbones comprise both non-conjugated tetraphenyl-silicon moiety and conjugated carbazole unit. All these TADF polymers exhibited high photoluminescence quantum yields in the neat films and the optimal one up to 0.71. The non-doped solution-processed polymer light emitting diodes by using these polymers as the emitting layers achieved good performance with the maximum external quantum efficiencies of 7.0%.