Deep-blue thermally activated delayed fluorescence emitter with a very high fluorescence rate

Abstract Conventional thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) molecules achieve small energy differences between the lowest singlet and triplet excited states (ΔEST) by enhancing the intramolecular charge transfer, which inevitably leads to a wide emission spectrum and low fluorescence rate. Here, we prepared a deep blue TADF molecule via a small ΔEST pyridine-phenol fluoroboron complex as the acceptor. The small ΔEST is maintained when carbazole donors are attached to the 4-position of the phenyl rings in the fluoroboron complex. Benefiting from the strong electron coupling between the donor (D) and acceptor (A) moieties, the compound Cz-4-BF exhibits a high fluorescence rate of 4.8 × 108 s−1 and a small D-A dihedral angle change in the excited state. Consequently, a photoluminescence (PL) quantum yield of nearly 100% and a PL spectrum with full-width at half-maximum (FWHM)