Simple Synthesis of Red Iridium(III) Complexes with Sulfur-Contained Four-Membered Ancillary Ligands for OLEDs
Meng-Xi Mao,
Fang-Ling Li,
Yan Shen,
Qi-Ming Liu,
Shuai Xing,
Xu-Feng Luo,
Zhen-Long Tu,
Xue-Jun Wu,
You-Xuan Zheng
Affiliations
Meng-Xi Mao
State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Organic Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
Fang-Ling Li
State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Organic Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
Yan Shen
State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Organic Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
Qi-Ming Liu
State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Organic Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
Shuai Xing
State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Organic Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
Xu-Feng Luo
State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Organic Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
Zhen-Long Tu
State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Organic Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
Xue-Jun Wu
State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Organic Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
You-Xuan Zheng
State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry, Collaborative Innovation Center of Advanced Microstructures, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Organic Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
Phosphorescent iridium(III) complexes have been widely researched for the fabrication of efficient organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). In this work, three red Ir(III) complexes named Ir-1, Ir-2, and Ir-3, with Ir-S-C-S four-membered framework rings, were synthesized efficiently at room temperature within 5 min using sulfur-containing ancillary ligands with electron-donating groups of 9,10-dihydro-9,9-dimethylacridine, phenoxazine, and phenothiazine, respectively. Due to the same main ligand of 4-(4-(trifluoromethyl)phenyl)quinazoline, all Ir(III) complexes showed similar photoluminescence emissions at 622, 619, and 622 nm with phosphorescence quantum yields of 35.4%, 50.4%, and 52.8%, respectively. OLEDs employing these complexes as emitters with the structure of ITO (indium tin oxide)/HAT-CN (dipyra-zino[2,3-f,2′,3′-h]quinoxaline-2,3,6,7,10,11-hexacarbonitrile, 5 nm)/TAPC (4,4′-cyclohexylidenebis[N,N-bis-(4-methylphenyl)aniline], 40 nm)/TCTA (4,4″,4″-tris(carbazol-9-yl)triphenylamine, 10 nm)/Ir(III) complex (10 wt%): 2,6DCzPPy (2,6-bis-(3-(carbazol-9-yl)phenyl)pyridine, 10 nm)/TmPyPB (1,3,5-tri(mpyrid-3-yl-phenyl)benzene, 50 nm)/LiF (1 nm)/Al (100 nm) achieved good performance. In particular, the device based on complex Ir-3 with the phenothiazine unit showed the best performance with a maximum brightness of 22,480 cd m−2, a maximum current efficiency of 23.71 cd A−1, and a maximum external quantum efficiency of 18.1%. The research results suggest the Ir(III) complexes with a four-membered ring Ir-S-C-S backbone provide ideas for the rapid preparation of Ir(III) complexes for OLEDs.
