Partial energy transfer from blue TADF sensitizer to orange fluorescent dopant for prolonging device lifetime

White organic light-emitting diodes (WOLEDs) with thermally activated delayed fluorescence-sensitized fluorescence (TSF) have aroused wide attention, considering their potential for attaining ultimate high efficiency and long lifetime with pure organic fluorescent emitters. To develop high-performance TSF-based WOLEDs, an efficient energy transfer system is built by combining a conventional host, a stable blue delayed fluorescence sensitizer, and an orange fluorescent dopant in a single-emissive-layer. Transient photoluminescence measurements decipher the Förster resonance energy transfer process with the high exciton utilization and the suppressed Dexter energy transfer in the single-emissive-layer. The TSF-based WOLEDs achieve a maximum external quantum efficiency of 20.9% and the balanced white emission with color coordinates of (0.31, 0.41) because of the partial energy transfer from blue sensitizer to the fluorescent dopant. Moreover, the TSF-WOLEDs exhibit a half-lifetime of ~2,800 h at an initial brightness of 1,000 cd m⁻², which can be further improved to >12,000 h by implementing the stacked structure and light outcoupling enhancement techniques. The prolonged device stability is because the TSF system can effectively prevent exciton leakage and suppress the accumulation-caused exciton-annihilation.