Endowing TADF luminophors with AIE properties through adjusting flexible dendrons for highly efficient solution-processed nondoped OLEDs

The amalgamation of thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) and aggregation-induced emission (AIE) properties, termed AIE-TADF, is a promising strategy to design novel robust luminescent materials. Herein, we transform 2,3,4,5,6-penta(9H-carbazol-9-yl)benzonitrile (5CzBN) from an ACQ molecule into an AIEgen by simply decorating the 5CzBN core with alkyl chain-linked spirobifluorene dendrons. By increasing the number of flexible dendrons, these materials can not only show obvious AIE-TADF characteristics and uniform film morphology, but can also exhibit better resistance to isopropyl alcohol, which are beneficial to fully solution-processed OLEDs. Notably, 5CzBN-PSP shows great device efficiency with an external quantum efficiency (EQE), current efficiency and power efficiency of 20.1%, 58.7 cd A(–1) and 46.2 lm W(–1), respectively and achieved record-breaking efficiency in solution-processed nondoped OLEDs based on AIE emitters. This work demonstrates a general approach to explore new efficient emitters by the marriage of AIE and TADF which could potentially improve their performance in various areas.