A sterically shielded design on anthracene-based emitters for efficient deep-blue organic light-emitting diodes

•Two sterically shielded anthracene derivatives are developed with modification of peripheral phenyl groups (PPGs).•The influence of PPGs decoration on the photoluminescence and electroluminescence properties is studied to unveil the structure-property relationship.•PPGs can significantly suppress electronic coupling in solid state due to its steric-demanding geometry•High efficiency with EQE of up to 5.05% and deep-blue electroluminescence with color index of (0.15, 0.09) are demonstrated. Two new anthracene derivatives are designed with a sterically shielded strategy for deep-blue electroluminescence applications. The naphthyl groups of the widely used blue emitter 9,10-di-(2-naphthyl)anthracene (ADN) were modified with four peripheral phenyl groups (PPGs) to enhance intermolecular spacing in solid-state thin film for suppressing electronic coupling. Influence of the PPGs decoration on photoluminescence and electroluminescence are investigated to reveal the structure-property relationship. A nondoped organic light-emitting diode with the new emitter 9-(naphthalen-2-yl)-10-(5,6,7,8-tetraphenylnaphthalen-2-yl)anthracene (M1) exhibits excellent performance with a maximum external quantum efficiency of 5.05% and deep-blue color index of (0.15, 0.09). Although the use of bulky peripheral substituents does improve device performance, it should be paid attention to the non-conductive effect induced by the larger molecular spacing in the design of deep-blue electroluminescence materials. This work provides a promising molecular design for deep-blue electroluminescence materials. [Display omitted]