Solid cyclooctatetraene-based triplet quencher demonstrating excellent suppression of singlet–triplet annihilation in optical and electrical excitation

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 11; no. 1; pp. 5623 - 9
• Main Authors: Mai, Van T. N., Ahmad, Viqar, Mamada, Masashi, Fukunaga, Toshiya, Shukla, Atul, Sobus, Jan, Krishnan, Gowri, Moore, Evan G., Andersson, Gunther G., Adachi, Chihaya, Namdas, Ebinazar B., Lo, Shih-Chun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 06.11.2020; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 639/301/1005/1007; 639/624/1020/1093; 639/638/298/917; 639/766/1130/2798; Blending effects; Continuous radiation; Dyes; Excitation; Excitons; Humanities and Social Sciences; Lasers; multidisciplinary; Organic lasers; Organic light emitting diodes; Quenching; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Semiconductor lasers; Solid state; Stilbene
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-19443-z

Triplet excitons have been identified as the major obstacle to the realisation of organic laser diodes, as accumulation of triplet excitons leads to significant losses under continuous wave (CW) operation and/or electrical excitation. Here, we report the design and synthesis of a solid-state organic triplet quencher, as well as in-depth studies of its dispersion into a solution processable bis-stilbene-based laser dye. By blending the laser dye with 20 wt% of the quencher, negligible effects on the ASE thresholds, but a complete suppression of singlet–triplet annihilation (STA) and a 20-fold increase in excited-state photostability of the laser dye under CW excitation, were achieved. We used small-area OLEDs (0.2 mm 2 ) to demonstrate efficient STA suppression by the quencher in the nanosecond range, supported by simulations to provide insights into the observed STA quenching under electrical excitation. The results demonstrate excellent triplet quenching ability under both optical and electrical excitations in the nanosecond range, coupled with excellent solution processability. Though reducing non-emissive triplet excited-states using quenchers effectively improves organic semiconductor laser diode (OSLD) performance, existing quenchers are not suitable for devices. Here, the authors designed a solid-state triplet quencher for OSLD under optical and electrical excitation.