High-efficiency and low roll-off deep-blue OLEDs enabled by thermally activated delayed fluorescence emitter with preferred horizontal dipole orientation

[Display omitted] •Molecular engineering by linear extension resulted in two blue TADF emitters.•The two emitters exhibited high photoluminescence quantum yields and preferred horizontal dipole orientation.•Deep-blue TADF OLEDs achieved external quantum efficiency of up to 29.3% and low efficiency roll-off. Highly efficient blue thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) materials with high horizontal dipole orientation (Θ//) remain a big challenge due to the concentration quenching effects and serious efficiency roll-offs in their corresponding organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). We herein report two novel TADF compounds, namely 2TDBA-SBA and TDBA-SBA, which were facilely synthesized by utilizing a rigid oxygen-bridged cyclized triarylboron-based unit (TDBA) as the acceptor and a spiro acridine (SBA) as the donor. Benefiting from the rigid and planar skeleton of the acceptor and the linear molecular shape, high Θ//s and photoluminescence quantum yields (PLQYs) of ∼ 90% were achieved. Significantly, TDBA-SBA exhibited excellent TADF properties with a short delayed fluorescence lifetime of only 684 ns and narrow full-width at half-maximum (FWHM) of 44 nm in solution state, accompanied by the high PLQYs of over 80% at high doping concentrations, manifesting the alleviated exciton quenching effects. Consequently, OLEDs based on TDBA-SBA achieved a high maximum external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 29.3% and a maximum brightness of 27663 cd cm−2. Importantly, an EQE over 20% was realized even at the high brightness of 10000 cd cm−2, signifying a small efficiency roll-off.