White Light Emission via Dual Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence from a Single-Component Phenothiazines–Diphenyl Quinoline Conjugate

Abstract

White light emission (WLE) via dual thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) from a single-component-based organic system remains challenging as a result of the difficulty in design. Here, we introduce a conformational isomerization approach to achieve WLE from a twisted donor–acceptor (PTzQP1) that comprises two phenothiazines covalently attached to the 6,8-isomeric positions of 2,4-diphenyl quinoline via two C–N single bonds. Spectroscopic studies and quantum chemistry calculations revealed that PTzQP1 shows WLE via simultaneous blue TADF and orange TADF covering the visible range (420–800 nm) with a photoluminescence quantum yield of 45 ± 2% and Commission Internationale de l’Éclairage (CIE) coordinates of 0.30, 0.33. The dual TADF features with high rates of reverse intersystem crossing ( k RISC1 = 1.38 × 10 7 ± 0.24 s –1 and k RISC2 = 5.04 × 10 6 ± 0.32 s –1 ) are realized as a result of the low singlet–triplet gaps (S1 EQ –T1 EQ = 0.04 eV and S1 QA –T1 QA = 0.05 eV) of the quasi-axial (QA) and quasi-equatorial (QE) conformers. This finding is expected to provide a new direction for designing high-energy-efficient WLE emitters.