Near-Infrared Emission By Tuned Aggregation Of A Porphyrin Compound In A Host-Guest Light-Emitting Electrochemical Cell

The synthesis of 5,10,15,20-tetrakis((5,10-bis((2-hexyldecyl)oxy)dithieno[3,2-c:3 ',2 '-h][1,5]naphthyridin-2-yl)ethynyl)porphyrin zinc(II) (Por4NT), a near-infrared (NIR) emitting compound, comprising a zinc porphyrin core linked with triple bonds through its meso positions to four 5,10-bis((2-hexyldecyl)oxy)dithieno[3,2-c:3 ',2 '-h][1,5]naphthyridine (NT) arms is reported. Por4NT featured high solubility in common non-polar solvents, which is ideal for easy processing through solution techniques, and high photoluminescence (PL) efficiency of approximate to 30% in dilute toluene solution. It also exhibited a strong tendency for aggregation because of its flat conformation, and this aggregation resulted in a strong redshifted emission and a drop in PL efficiency. A well-matched PBDTSi-BDD-Py "host" terpolymer is therefore designed, which is capable of mitigating the aggregation of the Por4NT "guest". An optimized blend of the host, guest, and an ionic-liquid electrolyte is utilized as the active material in a light-emitting electrochemical cell (LEC), which delivered strong NIR radiance of 134 mu W cm(-2) with a long wavelength maximum at 810 nm at a low drive voltage of 5.0 V. The attainment of the strong NIR emission from the host-guest LEC is attributed to a tuned aggregation of the Por4NT emitter, which resulted in the desired aggregation-induced redshift of the emission at a reasonably retained efficiency.