A novel violet emitter, 1,3-bis[10,10-dimethyl-10H-indeno[2,1-b]]indolo[3,2,1-jk]indolo[1',2',3':1,7]indolo[3,2-b]carbazole (m-FLDID), was designed and synthesized by meta-oriented bis-fusion of two 7,7-dimethyl-5,7-dihydroindeno[2,1-b]carbazole (DMID) subunits for use in a pure violet organic light-emitting diode (OLED). Incorporation of the DMID subunits effectively reduced the nonradiative recombination rate, improving the photoluminescence quantum yield of the m-FLDID emitter. The meta-oriented bis-fusion of the two DMID subunits not only triggered an alternative distribution of the frontier orbitals but also effectively locked the π-conjugation chain, which ultimately resulted in a narrow-band, pure violet emission of the m-FLDID emitter. Doped m-FLDID devices possessed an external quantum efficiency (EQE) of > 5%, pure violet emission with a maximum at 407 nm, a narrow full width at half-maximum of 17 nm, and a Commission Internationale de l'éclairage y coordinate of less than 0.03. This is the first work reporting an EQE of > 5% and an extremely narrow emission spectrum for a pure violet emitter.
Keywords: external quantum efficiency; fluorescent emitter; narrow bandwidth; photoluminescence quantum yield; pure violet.