Strategy Towards Rational Design of Gold(III) Complexes for High Performance Organic Light-Emitting Devices

Abstract

Gold(III) complexes are attractive candidates as phosphorescent dopants in organic lightemitting devices for high luminance full-colour displays. However, no data on the stability of such devices have been reported to date. Through rational molecular design and synthesis, we have successfully generated a new class of cyclometalated gold(III) C^C^N complexes with tunable emission colours spanning from sky-blue to red. These complexes exhibit high photoluminescence quantum yields of up to 80 % in solid-state thin films, excellent solubility and high thermal stability. Solution-processable and vacuum-deposited organic light-emitting devices based on these complexes operate with external quantum efficiencies of up to 11.9 % and 21.6 %, respectively, and operational half-lifetimes of up to 83,000 h at 100 cd m−2. Reference: Li, L.-K.; Tang, M.-C.; Lai, S.-L.; Ng, M.; Kwok, W.-K.; Chan, M.-Y.; Yam, V. W.-W., Strategies towards rational design of gold(III) complexes for high-performance organic light-emitting devices. Nature Photonics 2019, 13, 185−191.