Red electrophosphorescence from a soluble binaphthol derivative as host and iridium complex as guest

The investigation of the optical properties, carrier injection, and transport into a soluble small molecule, 6,6'-dicarbazolyl-2,2'-dihexyloxy-1,1'-binaphthol (BA), was reported. The results demonstrated that BA is a blue-emitting molecule, which can be used as a host for the fabrication of electrophosphorescent light-emitting diodes (LEDs). The single-layer electrophosphorescent LEDs fabricated from toluene solution containing BA with tris[2,5-bis-2'-(9',9'-dihexylfluorene)pyridine-kappa(2)NC(3)(')]iridium(III) [Ir(HFP)(3)] emitted red light from Ir(HFP)(3) triplet emission. The results from photoluminescence (PL) and electroluminescence (EL) demonstrated that the dominated operational mechanism in EL was charge trapping rather than Förster transfer, which was the dominated mechanism in PL. The single-layer OLEDs with 1wt % of Ir(HFP)(3) have a luminance (L) of 1000 cd/m(2) at 22 V and a luminous efficiency (LE) of 0.88 cd/A at 11 mA/cm(2). Double-layer electrophosphorescent LEDs fabricated by casting the emitting layer from a solution of BA blended with Ir(HFP)(3) and subsequently thermally depositing tris(8-hydroxyquinoline) aluminum (Alq(3)) film as an electron injection and transport layer yielded L = 1830 cd/m(2) at 30 V and LE = 2.47 cd/A at 18 mA/cm(2). These results demonstrated that electrophosphorescent LEDs can be fabricated from BA via solution processing and that L and LE can be enhanced by changing the device architecture with the goal of better balancing the electron and hole currents.