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

[Image: see text] 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[c][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.