Highly Efficient Nondoped Green Organic Light-Emitting Diodes with Combination of High Photoluminescence and High Exciton Utilization

Photoluminescence (PL) efficiency and exciton utilization efficiency are two key parameters to harvest high-efficiency electroluminescence (EL) in organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). But it is not easy to simultaneously combine these two characteristics (high PL efficiency and high exciton utilization) into a fluorescent material. In this work, an efficient combination was achieved through two concepts of hybridized local and charge-transfer (CT) state (HLCT) and “hot exciton”, in which the former is responsible for high PL efficiency while the latter contributes to high exciton utilization. On the basis of a tiny chemical modification in TPA-BZP, a green-light donor–acceptor molecule, we designed and synthesized CzP-BZP with this efficeient combination of high PL efficiency of ηPL = 75% in the solid state and maximal exciton utilization efficiency up to 48% (especially, the internal quantum efficiency of ηIQE = 35% substantially exceed 25% of spin statistics limit) in OLED. The nondoped OLED of CzP-BZP exhibited an excellent performance: a green emission with a CIE coordinate of (0.34, 0.60), a maximum current efficiency of 23.99 cd A–1, and a maximum external quantum efficiency (EQE, ηEQE) of 6.95%. This combined HLCT state and “hot exciton” strategy should be a practical way to design next-generation, low-cost, high-efficiency fluorescent OLED materials.