Green electroluminescent polyfluorenes containing 1,8-naphthalimide moieties as color tuner

A series of copolymers (CNPFs) containing low-band-gap 1,8-naphthalimide moieties as color tuner was prepared by a Yamamoto coupling reaction of 2,7-dibromo-9,9-dioctylfluorene (DBF) and different amount of 4-(3,6-dibromocarbazol-9-yl)-N-(4′-tert-butyl-phenyl)-1,8-naphthalimide (Br-CN) (0.05-1 mol% feed ratio). The light emitting properties of the resulting copolymers showed a heavy dependence on the feed ratio. In photoluminescence (PL) studies, an efficient color tuning through the Förster energy transfer mechanism was revealed from blue to green as the increase of Br-CN content, while in electroluminescence (EL) studies, the color tuning was found to go through a charge trapping mechanism. It was found that by introduction of a very small amount of Br-CN (0.1-0.5 mol%) into polyfluorene, the emission color can be tuned from blue to pure green with Commission International de l'Echairage (CIE) coordinates being (0.21, 0.42) and (0.21, 0.48). A green emitting EL single-layer device based on CNPF containing 0.1 mol% of Br-CN showed good performances with a low turn-on voltage of 4.2 V, a brightness of 9104 cd/m², the maximum luminous efficiency of 2.74 cd/A and the maximum power efficiency of 1.51 lm/W. To further improve the EL performances through balancing the charge trapping process, a copolymer (BCNPF05) derived from 0.5 mol% of a triarylamine-containing 4-{3,6-bis-[4″-(4?-bromophenyl-p-tolyl-amino)-phenyl]-carbazol-9-yl}-N-(4′-tert-butyl-phenyl)-1,8-naphthalimide (Br-BCN) and 99.5 mol% of 2,7-dibromo-9,9-dioctylfluorene was also prepared. As expected, a single layer EL device based on BCNPF05 exhibited better performances with a brightness of 14228 cd/m², the maximum luminous efficiency of 4.53 cd/A and the maximum power efficiency of 1.57 lm/W.