Enhanced Electron Affinity and Exciton Confinement in Exciplex-Type Host: Power Efficient Solution-Processed Blue Phosphorescent OLEDs with Low Turn-on Voltage

A benzimidazole/phosphine oxide hybrid 1,3,5-tris(1-(4-(diphenylphosphoryl)phenyl)-1H-benzo[d]imidazol-2-yl)benzene (TPOB) was newly designed and synthesized as the electron-transporting component to form an exciplex-type host with the conventional hole-transporting material tris(4-carbazoyl-9-ylphenyl)amine (TCTA). Because of the enhanced triplet energy and electron affinity of TPOB, the energy leakage from exciplex-state to the constituting molecule was eliminated. Using energy transfer from exciplex-state, solution-processed blue phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes (PHOLEDs) achieved an extremely low turn-on voltage of 2.8 V and impressively high power efficiency of 22 lm W(-1). In addition, the efficiency roll-off was very small even at luminance up to 10 000 cd m(-2), which suggested the balanced charge transfer in the emission layer. This study demonstrated that molecular modulation was an effective way to develop efficient exciplex-type host for high performanced PHOLEDs.