Sky-Blue-Emitting Dendritic Alkynylgold(III) Complexes for Solution-Processable Organic Light-Emitting Devices.

A new class of tridentate ligand-containing cyclometalated gold(III) complexes featuring dendritic alkynyl ligands with carbazole moieties as dendrons and peripheral groups has been synthesized up to the third generation. High-performance solution-processable organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs) with maximum current efficiency of up to 23.7 cd A and external quantum efficiency of up to 6.9% have been realized by a simple spin-coating technique. With the incorporation of bulky carbazole moieties to form higher generation dendrimers, the undesirable excimeric emission could be effectively reduced, allowing the fine-tuning of the emission color toward the blue region. This represents the first successful demonstration of sky-blue-emitting alkynylgold(III) complexes and its application in solution-processable OLEDs.