Inkjet printing of thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) dendrimer for OLEDs applications

This study presents the inkjet printing of a novel OLED device with fully solution-processed organic layers that employ TADF material as an emitting layer. The ink was formulated using new TADF material, triazine core carbazole dendrimers with tert-butyl group at the periphery (tBuG2TAZ), dissolved in a mixture of two non-chlorinated solvents. The influence of the print resolution and the substrate temperature on morphology of the printed films was studied and optimized in ambient conditions. The optimized TADF dendrimer layer was then incorporated in the OLEDs as the emitting layer. The best-printed OLEDs exhibited a maximum current efficiency of 18 cd/A and maximum luminance of 6900 cd/m². Such values are comparable to the values obtained in spin coated devices made of the same TADF dendrimer. Further, the mobility of charge carriers extracted from transient electroluminescence measurements of printed OLEDs, when compared to reference OLEDs made by spin coating technique, showed similar values. Finally, we have demonstrated the possibility of patterning of emission the area of complex shapes merely by selectively printing the emission layer. These results demonstrate the potential application of the new dendrimer TADF emitters for the fabrication of efficient OLEDs by an inkjet printing technique.