Red organic light-emitting diodes based on wide band gap emitting material as the host utilizing two-step energy transfer

We demonstrated efficient red organic light-emitting diodes based on a host emitting system of 9,10-di(2-naphthyl)anthracene (ADN) co-doped with 4-(dicyano-methylene)-2-t-butyle-6- (1,1,7,7-tetramethyl-julolidyl-9-enyl)-4H-pyran (DCJTB) as a red dopant and 2,3,6,7- tetrahydro-1,1,7,7-tetramethyl-1H,5H,1 1H-10(2-benzothiazolyl)-quinolizine-[9,9a,1gh] coumarin (C545T) as an assistant dopant. The typical device structure was glass substrate/ITO/4,4',4''-tris(N-3-methylphenyl-N-phenylamino) triphenylamine(m-MTDATA)/N,N'-bis-(naphthalene-1-yl)-N,N'-diphenylbenzidine (NPB)/[ADN: DCJTB: C545T/Alq3/LiF/Al]. It was found that C545T dopant did not emit by itself but did assist the energy transfer from the host (ADN) to the red emitting dopant. The red OLEDs realized by this approach not only enhanced the emission color, but also significantly improved the EL efficiency. The EL efficiency reached 3.5 cd A−1 at a current density of 20 mA cm−2, which is enhanced by three times compared with devices where the emissive layer is composed of the DCJTB doped ADN. The saturated red emission was obtained with CIE coordinates (x = 0.618, y = 0.373) at 621 nm, and the device driving voltage is decreased as much as 38%. We attribute these improvements to the assistant dopant (C545T), which leads to the more efficient energy transfer from ADN to DCJTB. These results indicate that the co-doped system is a promising method for obtaining high-efficiency red OLEDs