To cite this article: Ruby Srivastava (2015): The effect of substituted moiety on the optoelectronic and photophysical properties of tris (phenylbenzimidazolinato) Ir (III) carbene complexes and the OLED performance: a theoretical study, Density functional theory (DFT) and time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) are used to analyse theoretically the optoelectronic, photophysical properties and organic light-emitting diode performance of a series of fac-mer blue-emitting Iridium (III) carbene complexes. Swain-Lupton constant is used to discuss the substituents effect. 5d-orbital splitting and d-d * transitions are calculated to assess the efficiency of the studied complexes. The reorganisation energies (λ), transfer integrals, mobilities, radiative decay rate (k r ), and triplet exciton generation fraction (χ T ) are also calculated. Due to the higher χ T of these complexes, the formation of triplet exciton will be more and it will cause a faster intersystem crossing. Two host materials are proposed and host-guest match (Dexter-Förster energy) is also discussed. We hope that this unified work will surely help to design new blue-emitting phosphorescent materials in future.
IntroductionIridium (III) cyclometalated complexes have shown enormous potential as emissive dopants in organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) [1][2][3][4][5]. These complexes can also be used as sensitisers for outer-sphere electron-transfer reactions [6,7], photoreductants [8], biological labelling reagents [9], photocatalysts for CO 2 reduction [10], as well as the singlet oxygen sensitisers [11]. Among these Ir (III) complexes, green-and red-emitting materials in OLEDs with high quantum efficiencies have been known from years [12]. However, achieving blue phosphorescence with high quantum efficiency at room temperature is still a challenge [13]. One method to deal with this difficulty is to increase the contribution from the metal to ligand charge transfer ( 3 MLCT) configuration in the low-lying triplet state structure. Recently, FIrpic [14] and FIr6 [15] have become the excellent materials for greenish-blue-and sky-blue-emitting phosphorescent materials. Though efforts have been made to substitute the piconate ligand with ancillary chelates as triazolate or tetrazolate to afford the FIrtaz [16] and FIrN4 [17] heterocyclic complexes to produce blue emitting phosphorescent materials. While changing the emitting material of OLED from fluorescent [18] to phosphorescent complexes, the external quantum efficiencies of the OLED device were increased from 1% to 7.5%. Kido and co-workers [19] have also reported the efficiency of 29% using iridium complexes [20]. A blue phosphorescent complex has a higher energy emission state ( 3 MLCT) due to the large transition