Engineering the Interconnecting Position of Star-Shaped Donor-π-Acceptor Molecules Based on Triazine, Spirofluorene, and Triphenylamine Moieties for Color Tuning from Deep Blue to Green.

Pi-conjugated organic molecules featuring the donor-bridge-acceptor (D-π-A) structure have been widely used in semiconducting materials owing to their rigid structure, good thermal stability, excellent charge transfer, and high emission efficiency. To investigate the effect of the D-π-A molecular structure on the photophysical properties, in this contribution, three star-shaped D-π-A isomers based on the 2,4,6-triphenyl-1,3,5-triazine, spirofluorene, and triphenylamine moieties, that is, p-TFTPA, mp-TFTPA, and m-TFTPA, were synthesized by elaborately engineering the interconnecting position in the building-block units. The optophysical properties of these compounds were systematically explored by experiments and theory calculations. Definitively, changing the interconnecting position in these molecules played a significant role in the degree of π conjugation, which resulted in tunable emission colors from deep blue to green. Moreover, these isomers were employed as emissive dopants in organic light-emitting diodes. The highest external quantum efficiency of 2.3 % and current efficiency of 6.2 cd A(-1) were achieved by using the p-TFTPA based device. This research demonstrates a feasible way to realize blue emitters by engineering D-π-A conjugation.