The novel thermally activated delayed fluorescence compounds based on trifluoromethylpyridine were synthesized for blue OLEDs

Seeking efficient blue thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) luminous materials with a simple structure and applying them to organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) is still an urgent challenge. Herein, two novel D-π-A type blue TADF emitters with simple molecular structure, namely p-AcBPyCF3 and m-AcBPyCF3, featuring a trifluoromethylpyridine (PyCF3) as acceptor moiety, 9,9-dimethyl-tetrahydroacridine (Ac) as donor unit and benzene (B) as π-bridge, respectively, are first developed and compared in parallel. The analysis of single crystal reveals that p-AcBPyCF3 possesses clearly twisted geometry between the donor and acceptor units, as well as expanded molecular rigidity, thus leading to a smaller singlet-triplet energy difference and greatly improved emission efficiency. The p-AcBPyCF3 exhibits a photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) of 28.80 %, surpassing the PLQY value of 18.70 % for the m-AcBPyCF3. Compared to m-AcBPyCF3, the TADF-OLEDs based on p-AcBPyCF3 demonstrated exceptional properties, which suppresses the rotation of molecular conformation and can achieve high PLQY by reducing non radiative transformation processes, resulting in a maximum external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 9.26 % with peak at 470 nm and blue color coordinates of (0.18, 0.25). This work highlights that the simple PyCF3 group can be a promising electron acceptor moiety for the design of blue TADF materials.