Grant: Strategic Projects - Group

Organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) are cutting edge technologies that can be used in information display devices such as TV, computers and cellar phones. They can also be used as lighting devices to replace the traditional incandescent light bulbs and the fluorescent light bulbs. They offer the advantages of low energy consumption, environmentally friendly, versatile, flexible and decorative lighting design (e.g. lighting panels, tiles, furniture fixtures that operate under 10 V). The key challenges for OLEDs to compete with fluorescent light bulbs for commercial applications are the cost and the long term stability of OLED-based lighting devices, especially white light devices. One highly effective approach to address these challenges is to enhance the device efficiency and lifetime by using stable and highly efficient phosphorescent compounds as emitters and compatible charge transport materials in OLEDs. To achieve stable and highly efficient white lighting devices,a key component required is blue phosphorescent emitters. Among the three basic color components (blue, green and red), stable blue phosphorescent emitters are the most difficult to achieve and in high demand by OLEDs industry, due to the high exciton energy. This proposal uses a highly original and innovative approach, namely the introduction of an organoboron functional group to a metal compound, to create highly efficient and stable blue phosphorescent emitters and the corresponding electron transport materials for OLEDs. In addition, new design and engineering of the state-of-the art OLED structures and devices will be investigated to further enhance the efficiency and performance of the new lighting devices.Through this project, 2 postdoctoral fellows and 5 graduate students will be trained in materials design and syntheses, analytical and computational chemistry, solid state physics, OLED device engineering and design.