Reaching 100% Efficient OLEDs. Converting Triplet Excitons Into Singlet States Without Spin Orbit Coupling
Prof. Dr. Andy Monkman
Organic Electroactive Materials Research Group
Department of Physics, Durham University, England
Organic light emitting diodes are now a common place technology, but increasing their internal efficiency to near 100% is difficult. The main reason for this is that on charge recombination, 75% of excited states formed have triplet character and are non emissive. At present iridium containing phosphors are used to harvest these states to produced light, but a new type of emitter has been developed that can also convert triplet to singlet states but without the need for a heavy metal or spin orbit coupling, Thermally Activated Delay Fluorescence; ‘TADF’. In my talk I will describe the mechanisms that drive TADF and show how molecular design and careful energy level tuning give rise to 22% external quantum efficiency deep blue OLEDs. Throughout, new time resolved photophysical measurements will be explained and used to elucidate the physics behind TADF.
