Simple luminescent phenanthroimidazole emitters for solution-processed non-doped organic light-emitting electrochemical cells

Abstract

Organic luminescent materials with leveraging properties have attracted urgent demand for their commercial application in lighting devices. In this work, two organic emitters PITP and PITT based on thiophene-linked phenanthroimidazole derivatives with different substituents were synthesized and photophysically characterized. Their advantages of high thermal and photophysical characteristics were utilized to obtain non-doped light-emitting electrochemical cells (LECs). A high current efficiency of 1.18 cd A⁻¹ and maximum external quantum efficiency of 1.16% was achieved for the PITP-based device. This result provides tactics for the rational design and synthesis of light emitters using the phenanthroimidazole architecture for the practical application of low-cost devices.