High-efficiency and low efficiency roll-off near-infrared fluorescent OLEDs through triplet fusion

Though urgently needed, high-performance near-infrared organic light-emitting diodes (NIR-OLEDs) are still rare. NIR-OLEDs based on conventional NIR fluorescent materials usually suffer from low external quantum efficiencies (EQEs) because of the intrinsic obstacles according to the spin-statistics limit and energy-gap law. Herein, we realized high-efficiency and low efficiency roll-off fluorescent NIR-OLEDs through efficient triplet fusion of a bipolar host doped with a special naphthoselenadiazole emitter (4,9-bis(4-(2,2-diphenylvinyl)phenyl)-naphtho[2,3-c][1,2,5]selenadiazole, NSeD). Unlike typical NIR organic donor–acceptor (D–A) chromophores, NSeD features a non-D–A structure and a very large HOMO/LUMO overlap and displays a strong deep-red to NIR fluorescence and unique ambipolar character. The corresponding photoluminescence quantum efficiency of NSeD reaches 52% in solution and retains 17% in the blend film. The optimized NIR-OLEDs demonstrated a strong emission at 700 nm, a high maximum EQE of 2.1% (vs. the predicted theoretical maximum efficiency of 1.3%) and the EQE remained at around 2% over a wide range of current densities from 18 to 200 mA cm(–2), which is amongst the highest performance for NIR-OLEDs based on organic fluorescent materials.