High Efficiency Nondoped Deep-Blue Organic Light Emitting Devices Based on Imidazole-π-triphenylamine Derivatives

High-performance deep-blue emitting phenanthroimidazole derivatives with a structure of donor–linker–acceptor were designed and synthesized. By using different linkers and different linking positions, four deep-blue emitters were obtained and used as emitters or bifunctional hole-transporting emitters in OLEDs. Such devices show low turn-on voltages (as low as 2.8 V), high efficiency (2.63 cd/A, 2.53 lm/W, 3.08%), little efficiency roll-off at high current densities, and stable deep-blue emissions with CIE y < 0.10. Performances are among the best comparing to recently reported deep-blue emitting devices with similar structures. The results suggest that the combination of the phenanthroimidazole and the donor–linker–acceptor structure can be an important approach for developing high performance deep-blue emitters in particular for lighting applications.