Silafluorene moieties as promising building blocks for constructing wide-energy-gap host materials of blue phosphorescent organic light-emitting devices

In this article, we reported the synthesis and characterization of a novel silafluorene-based host material, 1,3-bis（5-methyl-5H- dibenzo[b,d]silol-5-yl）benzene （Me-DBSiB）, for blue phosphorescent organic light-emitting devices （PHOLEDs）. The Me- DBSiB was constructed by linking 9-methyl-9-silafluorene units to the phenyl framework through the sp3-hybridized silica atom to maintain high singlet and triplet energy, as well as to enhance thermal and photo-stability. The calculated result shows that the phenyl core does not contribute to both the highest occupied molecular orbital and lowest unoccupied molecular orbital. Wide optical energy gap of 4.1 eV was achieved. When the Me-DBSiB was used as the host and iridium （Ⅲ） bis[（4,6-difluorophenyl）pyridinato-N,C2＇]picolate （Firpic） as the guest, a maximum current efficiency was 14.8 cd/A, lower than the counterpart of 1,3-bis（9-carbazolyl）benzene （28 cd/A）. The unbalanced barrier for electron and hole injection to host layer may be responsible for low efficiency. Even so, our results show that silafluorene moieties are promising building blocks for constructing wide-energy-gap host materials.