Butterfly-Shaped Thiophene-Pyridine Hybrids: Green Electroluminescence and Large Third-Order Optical Nonlinearities

Abstract

A set of four symmetric, butterfly-shaped 4-(4-(decyloxy)phenyl)-2,6-di(thiophen-2-yl)pyridine (TPY) derivatives 2TPA-TPY (TPY center and triphenylamine end groups), 2CBZ-TPY (TPY center and N-ethyl carbazole end groups), 2TPY-TPA (triphenylamine center and TPY at the periphery) and 2TPY-CBZ (N-ethyl carbazole center and TPY at the periphery) was synthesized. The molecules show reverse saturable absorption (RSA) which is consistent with two-photon absorption (2PA) associated with excited-state absorption (ESA) when excited using a 532 nm laser beam. The molecules 2TPA-TPY and 2TPY-TPA possess extremely low limiting thresholds of 1.73 and 2.68 J cm−2, respectively. An organic light-emitting diode (OLED) fabricated from 2TPA-TPY exhibits green emission with a maximum luminance of 207 cd m−2, a current efficiency (ηCE) of 1.51cd A−1, a maximum power efficiency (ηPmax) of 0.46 lm W−1 and an external quantum efficiency (ηEQE) of 0.48 % at 100 cd m−2. © 2020 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim