Towards efficient near-infrared fluorescent organic light-emitting diodes

The energy gap law (E_G-law) and aggregation quenching are the main limitations to overcome in the design of near-infrared (NIR) organic emitters. Here, we achieve unprecedented results by synergistically addressing both of these limitations. First, we propose porphyrin oligomers with increasing length to attenuate the effects of the E_G-law by suppressing the non-radiative rate growth, and to increase the radiative rate via enhancement of the oscillator strength. Second, we design side chains to suppress aggregation quenching. We find that the logarithmic rate of variation in the non-radiative rate vs. E_G is suppressed by an order of magnitude with respect to previous studies, and we complement this breakthrough by demonstrating organic light-emitting diodes with an average external quantum efficiency of ~1.1%, which is very promising for a heavy-metal-free 850 nm emitter. We also present a novel quantitative model of the internal quantum efficiency for active layers supporting triplet-to-singlet conversion. These results provide a general strategy for designing high-luminance NIR emitters.