Sterically Wrapped Oxygen-Bridged Boron Derivatives for High-Performance Blue Organic Light-Emitting Diodes

Near ultraviolet (NUV) organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) have great advantages in the field of light excitation sources, chemical and biological sensors, etc. However, the molecular design of NUV emitters still faces the challenges of spectral broadening and red-shift. In this study, attaching weak oxygen-bridged triarylboron acceptor to weak carbazolyl donor is able to address intractable problems by weakening donor–acceptor (D–A) charge transfer. Simultaneously, sterically wrapped and modified oxygen-bridged triarylboron acceptor by bulk substituents (multiple carbazolyl) can suppress intermolecular π–π stacking through steric hindrance effect. These design strategies are able to obtain short-wavelength, narrow-band emission, and great color purity. As a result, carbazolyl derivatives xCz-BO-based (x = 2, 3, 4, 5) emitters show EL emission peaks from 406 to 422 nm in the NUV light region and small full-width at half-maximums (FWHMs) of 32–41 nm over a wide range of dopant concentrations (10–40 wt.%). The most violet Commission International de I'Eclairage (CIE) color coordinate is (0.16, 0.03). Moreover, 5Cz-BO can be employed as host for vacuum-/solution-processed blue OLEDs and these devices exhibit high performance with EQEs of over 20%.