It is strongly believed that further progress in organic light emitting technologies depends on if we can develop heavy-metal-free materials with fast reverse intersystem crossing (rISC) and fluorescence rates in subnanosecond domain. Nowadays, the most promising uprising all-organic OLED technologies including those using thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) phenomenon and TADF combined with Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET), a so-called “hyperfluorescence”, rely on the donor-acceptor TADF materials with the fastest rISC. However, understanding of mechanism of basic phostophysical processes in such materials still remains poorly investigated. Obviously, general theory of TADF is also highly required.
This presentation will focus on the features of popular and most demanded blue and red TADF emitters, which deviate from our understanding within the classic photophysical model. An alternative TADF model will be described [1, 2], which explains these deviations suggesting that spin-flip transitions between the singlet (1CT) and triplet (3CT) states of the charge-transfer character are actually not as “forbidden” as stated by selection rules. The presented model emphasizes the importance of the 3CT-1CT transition, which molecular vibrations/rotations are crucial for rISC and which aspects of molecular design can improve TADF materials.
Bibliography
[1]DOI: 10.1039/d2tc00476c;
[2]DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.0c10605
Financial support: LIDER XI grant (LIDER/47/0190/L-11/19/NCBR/2020) and CHEMFIZ program (WND-POWR.03.02.00-00-I059/1) of National Centre for Research and Development. Sonata 16 project (UMO-2020/39/D/ST5/03094) of National Science Centre, Poland. DFT calculations were performed on the computers of the Wroclaw Centre for Networking and Supercomputing (WCSS), Poland.
Currently, the major problem of most thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) emitters is low rate of reverse intersystem crossing (rISC), a crucial process, responsible for conversion of dark triplet excitons into emissive singlet ones. One of the solutions to accelerate rISC is to increase spin-orbit coupling (SOC) between triplet and singlet states. It can be achieved by heavy-atom effect (HAE). Described here research is aimed to verify HAE concept for TADF materials through detailed experimental and DFT investigations conducted on blue and red/NIR derivatives of TADF emitters with high potential for application [1,2].
The organic dyes showing thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) can be very promising photosensitizers as they store absorbed energy in triplet states up to milliseconds, have high PLQY and are chemically stable. Putting heavy atom in donor part of the molecule causes elongation the emissive of fluorescensce. To compare external and internal heavy-atom effect in TADF emiters in water solutions, hosts with a different types of polarity were used to separate dye-molecules embedded in micelles and basic photophysical properties were checked using steady-state and time-resolved measurements.
Perylenediimides (PDIs) are versatile organic compounds. Broad and strong absorption of visible light, semiconducting properties, easiness of structural modification and high stability make PDIs good candidates for novel optoelectronic and photocatalytic applications. PDIs can find use in fields where photosensitizing properties are desirable, like medicine, photodynamic therapy, photocatalysis, photopolymerization and air purification. Key features of PDIs, like absorption spectrum, HOMO and LUMO energy, emission spectrum, solubility and aggregability, can be modified according to the intended use. In our work, we investigate effects of various substituents with different electronic effects on photophysical properties of PDIs. Such approach allows to alter HOMO and LUMO energy according to needs. Our aim was to optimize structure of PDI derivatives for photosensitizing purposes. Density functional theory calculations and photophysical measurements were used to determine best PDI derivatives. Selected PDI derivatives were synthesized in two steps with good yields from commercially available substrates. Absorption and emission spectra of obtained PDIs were measured. We found PDI derivatives based on a Donor-Acceptor structure had superior photophysical properties. Moreover some of Donor-Acceptor based PDIs most likely exhibit Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence (TADF) phenomenon. Donor-Acceptor based PDI derivatives might be a solution for low efficiency of organic photosensitizers.
During the last few years, the phenomenon of thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) finds more and more applications in numerous fields of technology, especially in organic light emitting diodes (OLED) giving rise to variously shaped and flexible optoelectronic devices and displays. Further development of products using OLED technology requires emitters exhibiting deep-blue TADF with relatively short emission lifetimes and high chemical stability. The state-of-the-art pure organic TADF emitters comprise donor and acceptor fragments separated spatially. This enables very small gap between the lowest singlet and triplet excited states of charge-transfer (CT) character. However, as these states differ only by multiplicity, the transition between them is forbidden by the selection rules. According to the current understanding of TADF mechanism, the efficient conversion of nonradiative triplet excitons to the emissive singlet ones occurs when a locally excited triplet state (3LE) is energetically close to the 1CT and 3CT states. The photophysical principles described above work very well for design of efficient yellow, green, and sky-blue TADF materials. To achieve deep-blue TADF, the emitter should comprise highly energetic CT and 3LE states, which is a challenging requirement. To face this problem we investigated two approaches of increasing excited states’ energies: (i) reduction of conjugation of the acceptor fragment by its deplanarization and (ii) introduction of electron-releasing substituents in the acceptor fragment. 2-Phenyl-s-triazine and 9,10- dihydro-9,9-dimethylacridine were selected as acceptor and donors fragments, respectively. Our results show that both approaches efficiently increase energies of the CT and acceptor 3LE states, maintaining the rate constant of reverse intersystem crossing in the 105–106 s–1 range. This presentation will focus on details of the above mentioned investigations including characteristics of the OLED devices.
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