Rational design of quinoxaline-based bipolar host materials for highly efficient red phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes

Two novel bipolar carbazole/diphenylquinoxaline-based host materials 3-(2,3-diphenylquinoxalin-6-yl)-9-phenyl-9H-carbazole (M1) and 3-(4-(2,3-diphenylquinoxalin-6-yl)phenyl)-9-phenyl-9H-carbazole (M2) have been rationally designed and synthesized. The phenyl spacer between the functionalized quinoxaline moiety and the carbazole moiety is also introduced to investigate its influence on their photophysical properties. The chemical structures, and thermal, photophysical and electrochemical properties of the two host materials were characterized and explored in detail. Red phosphorescent light-emitting diodes with M1 and M2 as hosts were prepared to explore their electroluminescent properties. Both M1 and M2 host-based red devices exhibit outstanding electroluminescent performance. For example, two red devices all realize good red emission with the maximum at 594 nm, the maximum external quantum efficiency and luminance can reach 14.66% and 28 619 cd m(−2) for M1-based devices and 15.07% and 28 818 cd m(−2) for M2-based devices, indicating compounds M1 and M2 designed in this work have potential applications in the development of high-performance monochrome and white OLEDs.