A bis-salicylaldiminato Schiff base and its zinc complex as new highly fluorescent red dopants for high performance organic electroluminescence devices

Schiff base 2,3-bis[(4-diethylamino-2-hydroxybenzylidene)amino]but-2-enedinitrile (BDPMB) and its zinc complex (BDPMB-Zn) with donor–acceptor–donor (D–A–D) type ICT properties in the neutral form were used as novel red-emitting dopants in OLEDs; bright saturated red-emitting EL devices with excellent colour chromaticity coordinates (x, y = 0.670, 0.325 for BDPMB; x, y = 0.655, 0.325 for BDPMB-Zn) and good efficiency (1.35 cd A−1 for BDPMB; 0.50 cd A−1 for BDPMB-Zn) were obtained.