Boron-, sulfur- and nitrogen-doped decacyclic multiple resonance emitters for narrowband deep blue electroluminescence

Two boron-, sulfur- and nitrogen-doped polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) multiple resonance (MR) emitters, namely mDBNS and mDBNStBu, are developed by introducing two pairs of boron (B) and sulfur (S) atoms at meta-positions of central benzene and one carbazole moiety in decacyclic aromatic skeletons. The resultant emitters exhibit efficient deep blue narrowband emission at 451–457 nm with full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 18–22 nm in toluene, together with PLQY of 70%–76% and reverse intersystem crossing rate (kRISC) of 1.1–1.2 × 105 s−1. Solution-processed organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) employing mDBNStBu as emitters exhibit deep blue electroluminescence at 462 nm with CIE coordinates of (0.13, 0.12), together with a maximum external quantum efficiency (EQEmax) of 10.4%.