In Situ Generation of Red-Emissive AIEgens from Commercial Sources for Nondoped OLEDs

Luminescent materials with red emission are promising materials for optoelectronic devices and biological sciences. However, their synthesis is often complicated. In this work, we developed a facile approach to generating red-emissive luminogens with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) characteristics from commercially available reactants. The new compounds, abbreviated PN-BTZ-Cz and DP-BTZ-Cz, were prepared by coupling 4,7-dibromobenzo[<i>c</i>][1,2,5]thiadiazole with (1-naphehyl)phenylamine or diphenylamine followed by the reaction of the monobromo-substituted compounds with carbazole. Although all of the reactants were non-AIE-active, PN-BTZ-Cz and DP-BTZ-Cz showed AIE characteristics. This suggested that the AIE chromophores were generated in situ through the reactions. PN-BTZ-Cz and DP-BTZ-Cz were soluble in common organic solvents and showed red emission with high fluorescence quantum yields of 42.2 and 38.3% in the film, respectively. They were thermally and morphologically stable, as revealed by their high decomposition temperature (up to 327 °C) and glass-transition temperature (up to 120 °C). Nondoped organic light-emitting diodes with a configuration of ITO/HATCN/TAPC/PN-BTZ-Cz or DP-BTZ-Cz/Bphen/Liq/Al were fabricated using these compounds as emitting layers, which emitted red electroluminescence at a low turn-on voltage (down to 2.8 V) with a maximum external quantum yield of up to 2.7% and a small efficiency roll-off.