Tunable circularly polarized electroluminescence behaviors from chiral co-assembled conjugated liquid crystal polymers.

Chiral co-assembly strategy has proven effective in increasing the dissymmetry factor (g) of the emitting layers (EMLs) in circularly polarized organic light-emitting diodes (CP-OLEDs). Therefore, it is crucial to investigate the molecular structures that facilitate chiral co-assembly for further amplification of circularly polarized electroluminescence (CP-EL) signals. In this study, three types of achiral conjugated liquid crystal (LC) polymers (PFPh, PFNa and PFPy) and chiral binaphthyl-based polymer inducers (R/S-FO) were synthesized to construct corresponding chiral co-assemblies (R/S-FO)-(PFPh/Na/Py) as EMLs for CP-OLEDs through strong intermolecular π-π stacking interactions. Interestingly, these resulting chiral co-assembled EMLs exhibited tunable CP-EL behaviors caused by the different conjugation linkers of LC polymers. Among them, the deep blue devices based on (R/S-FO)-(PFNa) emitted the strongest CP-EL signals (|g| = 0.014, L = 3039 cd m, CE = 1.16 cd A). It is attributed to the formation of ordered helical nanofibers facilitated by the excellent intermolecular compatibility due to the same naphthyl moieties in PFNa and R/S-FO. This study provides novel perspectives for developing high-performance CP-EL materials in chiral co-assembly systems.