Investigating side chain mediated electroluminescence from carbazole-modified polyfluorene.

In molecular design of electroluminescent (EL) conjugated polymers, introducing a charge transport moiety on a side chain is found to be a promising method for balancing electron and hole fluxes in EL devices without changing the emitting color if there is no interaction between moiety and main chain. In the case of grafting a carbazole (Cz) moiety (hole transporting) on blue emitting polyfluorene, a green emission appears with intensity comparable to the blue emission, which was attributed to a possible interaction between main chain and Cz as previously reported by us. Here, a detailed study of its EL mechanism was carried out by means of time-resolved EL with the assistance of molecular simulation and thermally stimulated current measurements; exploration of how main chain segments interact with the transport moiety was performed. We found the Cz groups in Cz100PF play multiple roles: they act as (1) hole transporter to improve hole injection, (2) hole trapping site for efficient electron-hole recombination to yield blue-emitting excitons, and (3) source of green emission from electroplex formed via electric field-mediated interaction of the Cz/Cz radical cation with an electron in the nearby PF backbone. In combination, these observations suggest that integrated consideration for both intramolecular and intermolecular interactions provides a new route of molecular design of efficient EL polymers.

Green emission from end-group-enhanced aggregation in polydioctylfluorene.

Green emission in polyfluorenes (PFs) has been attributed to aggregation or excimer emission, but recently it was reassigned as an on-chain fluorenone defect. We show here that, in dialkyl-substituted PFs that is hydrogen-free at the 9'-position of the fluorene, blue emission with very weak green emission is observed from end-capped polydioctylfluorene (PFO) for both photoluminescence and electroluminescence spectra, while the low-energy green emission at 507 nm is very pronounced only in uncapped PFO (PFOun). The facts that there is no detectable infrared absorption at around 1721 cm(-1) due to >C=O stretching vibration in PFOun and no charge-trapping occurring in the light-emitting device from PFOun are in contrast with those found in the literature-reported copolymers with fluorenone units, which have detectable infrared absorption at 1721 cm(-1) and charge-trapping in devices. We found that this green emission at around 507 nm originates from the end-group-enhanced aggregation by use of UV-vis absorption, photoexcitation spectra, and steady-state photoluminescent and electroluminescent spectra. The end-group-enhanced aggregation is much weaker in other PFs with less-ordered structures.

Fine tuning the purity of blue emission from polydioctylfluorene by end-capping with electron-deficient moieties.

We propose a simple way to achieve pure blue emission and improved device efficiency via capping poly(9,9-dioctylfluorene) (PFO) with electron-deficient moieties (EDMs, such as oxadiazole (OXD) and triazole (TAZ)), which can induce a minor amount of long conjugating length species (regarded as beta phase) to control extents of energy transfer from amorphous matrix to the beta phase. The device efficiency of PFO end-capped with TAZ is higher than that with para-tert-butyl phenyl (TBP) by a factor of 2 (with CsF/Al as cathode), and its electroluminescent spectrum remains stable and with pure blue emission during cyclic operations (C.I.E. color coordinates x = 0.165, y = 0.076, independent of operating voltage and within the limit for pure blue emission x + y < 0.30). The improvement of device efficiency is dependent on the structure of EDM, such as size and planarity. The deep blue emission is originated from the incomplete energy transfer from amorphous matrix to the beta phase induced by the end-cappers.

High-efficiency red-light emission from polyfluorenes grafted with cyclometalated iridium complexes and charge transport moiety.

We report a new route for the design of electroluminescent polymers by grafting high-efficiency phosphorescent organometallic complexes as dopants and charge transport moieties onto alky side chains of fully conjugated polymers for polymer light-emitting diodes (PLED) with single layer/single polymers. The polymer system studied involves polyfluorene (PF) as the base conjugated polymer, carbazole (Cz) as the charge transport moiety and a source for green emission by forming an electroplex with the PF main chain, and cyclometalated iridium (Ir) complexes as the phosphorescent dopant. Energy transfer from the green Ir complex or an electroplex formed between the fluorene main chain and side-chain carbazole moieties, in addition to that from the PF main chain, to the red Ir complex can significantly enhance the device performance, and a red light-emitting device with the high efficiency 2.8 cd/A at 7 V and 65 cd/m2, comparable to that of the same Ir complex-based OLED, and a broad-band light-emitting device containing blue, green, and red peaks (2.16 cd/A at 9 V) are obtained.