B−N/B−O Contained Heterocycles as Fusion Locker in Multi-Resonance Frameworks towards Highly-efficient and Stable Ultra-Narrowband Emission

Abstract

Fusing condensed aromatics into multi-resonance (MR) frameworks has been an exquisite strategy to modulate the optoelectronic properties, which, however, always sacrifices the small full width at half maxima (FWHM). Herein, we strategically embed B−N/B−O contained heterocycles as fusion locker into classical MR prototypes, which could enlarge the π-extension and alleviate the steric repulsion for an enhanced planar skeleton to suppress the high-frequency stretching/ scissoring vibrations for ultra-narrowband emissions. Sky-blue emitters with extremely small FWHMs of 17–18 nm are thereafter obtained for the targeted emitters, decreased by (1.4–1.9)-fold compared with the prototypes. Benefiting from their high photoluminescence quantum yields of >90 % and fast radiative decay rates of >108 s−1, one of those emitters shows a high maximum external quantum efficiency of 31.9 % in sensitized devices, which remains 25.8 % at a practical luminance of 1,000 cd m−2 with a small FWHM of merely 19 nm. Notably a long operation half-lifetime of 1,278 h is also recorded for the same device, representing one of the longest lifetimes among sky-blue devices based on MR emitters.