Design of high triplet energy electron transporting material for exciplex-type host: Efficient blue and white phosphorescent OLEDs based on solution processing

A high triplet energy electron transporting material 1,3,5-tris(diphenylphosphoryl) benzene (TPO) was successfully designed and synthesized to form an efficient exciplex with the commonly used hole transporting molecule tris(4-carbazoyl-9-ylphenyl) amine (TCTA). The singlet-triplet energy difference in this exciplex was only 0.03 eV, which leads to the successive triplet up-conversion and delayed fluorescence. In addition, due to the high triplet energies of TPO and TCTA, the energy leakage from exciplex-state to the constituting molecule was eliminated. By employing this exciplex as host, solution-processed white phosphorescent OLEDs have been realized with a low turn-on voltage of 3 V and a high power efficiency of 20.5 lm W-1. These results indicate that the well-designed exciplex can be used as efficient host material for low-cost solution-processed OLEDs. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.