Platinum and Gold Complexes for OLEDs

Encouraging efforts on the design of high-performance organic materials and smart architecture during the past two decades have made organic light-emitting device (OLED) technology an important competitor for the existing liquid crystal displays. Particularly, the development of phosphorescent materials based on transition metals plays a crucial role for this success. Apart from the extensively studied iridium(III) complexes with d(6) electronic configuration and octahedral geometry, the coordination-unsaturated nature of d(8) transition metal complexes with square-planar structures has been found to provide intriguing spectroscopic and luminescence properties. This article briefly summarizes the development of d(8) platinum(II) and gold(III) complexes and their application studies in the fabrication of phosphorescent OLEDs. An in-depth understanding of the nature of the excited states has offered a great opportunity to fine-tune the emission colors covering the entire visible spectrum as well as to improve their photophysical properties. With good device engineering, high performance vacuum-deposited OLEDs with external quantum efficiencies (EQEs) of up to 30 % and solution-processable OLEDs with EQEs of up to 10 % have been realized by modifying the cyclometalated or pincer ligands of these metal complexes. These impressive demonstrations reveal that d(8) metal complexes are promising candidates as phosphorescent materials for OLED applications in displays as well as in solid-state lighting in the future.