Spiro‐fluoreno‐imidazole (SFI) Emitters Efficiently Harvesting Hot Excitons for Deep‐Blue Organic Light‐Emitting Diodes with CIE <sub>y</sub> Below 0.046
Hot exciton emitters have emerged as promising candidates for efficient deep-blue fluorescent organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), by enabling triplet exciton harvesting through high-lying reverse intersystem crossing. However, limited molecular catalogues impede comprehensive mechanistic investigations and device performance elevations. Here, for the first time, we introduced a novel rigid and steric spiro-fluoreno-fused imidazole (SFI) skeleton to engineer high-performance deep-blue hot exciton emitters. Three derivatives, Cz-SFI, tCz-SFI, and 3Cz-SFI, were strategically designed to modulate donor-acceptor orbital overlap and hybridized local and charge-transfer character. Detailed theoretical calculations and transient absorption spectra clearly revealed the dominant channel of high-lying reverse intersystem crossing, with a rapid rate constant up to 3.36 × 10<sup>9</sup> s<sup>-1</sup>. Remarkably, the tCz-SFI-based OLED device achieved deep-blue electroluminescence with an exciton utilization efficiency of 83.2% and an unprecedented external quantum efficiency of 12.55% by efficiently harvesting hot triplet excitons. The device exhibited stable electroluminescence peaking at 410 nm, corresponding to Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage coordinates of (0.161, 0.043), setting a new benchmark for deep-blue hot-exciton OLEDs.
Authors
- Zikai He (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9943-5677)
- Peng Zou
- Zujin Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0618-6024)
- Chenlong Wei
- Teng‐Teng Chen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9480-615X)
- Songkun Zeng
- Chao Li (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9474-2544)
- Yufeng Xie (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-3187-2044)
- Wenbin Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3962-1114)
- Yantao Deng (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-5087-159X)
Institutions
- Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HK)
- Harbin Institute of Technology (CN)
- Heilongjiang Institute of Technology (CN)
- State Key Laboratory of Luminescent Materials and Devices
- University of Hong Kong (HK)
- South China University of Technology (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Angewandte Chemie International Edition
- Published
- 2025-12-18
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202524293
- Primary Topic
- Organic Light-Emitting Diodes Research
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province
- Shenzhen Fundamental Research Program