Pyrimidine based hole-blocking materials with high triplet energy and glass transition temperature for blue phosphorescent OLEDs

We designed and synthesized new hole-blocking materials (HBMs), mPyrPPB and pPPyrPB, consisting of pyrimidine and phenylene segments for high-performance blue phosphorescent OLEDs. The thermal, electrochemical, and optical properties of mPyrPPB and pPPyrPB were systemically investigated. It was found that the T_g values of mPyrPPB and pPPyrPB were 118 and 137 °C, respectively. Especially, the triplet energy and highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) energy level of mPyrPPB were 2.77 eV and −6.86 eV, respectively, indicating that it had sufficiently high triplet energy and deep HOMO energy level for the hole-blocking layer (HBL) in blue phosphorescent OLED devices. It was found that all the meta conjugation of mPyrPPB molecular structure effectively prevented π-electron delocalization and thus increased the triplet energy and electron transport property. In addition, mPyrPPB exhibited higher electron-transporting property than pPPyrPB because mPyrPPB possessed effective intermolecular hydrogen bonds. When mPyrPPB was utilized as a HBM for a blue phosphorescent OLED device, external quantum efficiency (EQE), current efficiency (CE), and power efficiency (PE) values effectively increased to 16.4%, 36.7 cd/A, and 13.4 lm/W, respectively. Compared to the reference device without HBM, EQE, CE, and PE increased by 38%, 35%, and 54% respectively, mainly due to the confinement of triplet excitons and holes and improved electron-transporting ability.