Two small molecular hole-transporting type materials, namely 4-(9,9-dimethylacridin-10(9H)-yl)-N-(4-(9,9-dimethylacridin-10(9H)-yl)phenyl)-N-phenylaniline (TPA-2ACR) and 10,10'-(9-phenyl-9H-carbazole-3,6-diyl)bis(9,9-dimethyl-9,10-dihydroacridine) (PhCAR-2ACR), were designed and synthesized using a single-step Buchwald-Hartwig amination between the dimethyl acridine and triphenylamine or carbazole moieties. Both materials showed high thermal decomposition temperatures of 402 and 422 °C at 5% weight reduction for PhCAR-2ACR and TPA-2ACR, respectively. TPA-2ACR as hole-transporting material exhibited excellent current, power, and external quantum efficiencies of 55.74 cd/A, 29.28 lm/W and 21.59%, respectively. The achieved device efficiencies are much better than that of the referenced similar, 1,1-Bis[(di-4-tolylamino)phenyl]cyclohexane (TAPC)-based device (32.53 cd/A, 18.58 lm/W and 10.6%). Moreover, phenyl carbazole-based PhCAR-2ACR showed good device characteristics when applied for host material in phosphorescent OLEDs.
Keywords: HTL; acridine; carbazole; host material; organic light emitting diodes; triphenylamine.