Solution‐processed AIEgen NIR OLEDs with EQE Approaching 15 %

Abstract Organic near‐infrared (NIR) luminogens have attracted intensive attention considering their vast potential applications in areas like bioimaging, organic light‐emitting diodes (OLEDs) and night‐vision telecommunication. However, organic NIR luminogens with high solid quantum efficiencies are scarce, limiting their applications. Here, we reported an electron‐deficient acceptor, BSM, based on dithiafulvalene and benzothiadiazole, which could work as a strong acceptor to produce highly efficient NIR emitters with aggregation‐induced emission (AIE) property. One of the AIEgens, TBSMCN emitted at 820 nm with a solid quantum yield of 10.7 %. When applied to solution‐processed OLEDs, an outstanding external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 9.4 % was achieved with a peak wavelength at 728 nm. Moreover, its non‐doped device could achieve an extraordinary EQE of 2.2 % peaking at 804 nm. In the further optimized configuration, when an extra sensitizer was added to harvest triplet excitons, the EQE unprecedentedly soared up to 14.3 % with a peak wavelength of 750 nm.