High-efficiency stretchable light-emitting polymers from thermally activated delayed fluorescence

Liu, Wei; Zhang, Cheng; Alessandri, Riccardo; Diroll, Benjamin T.; Li, Yang; Liang, Heyi; Fan, Xiaochun; Wang, Kai; Cho, Himchan; Liu, Youdi; Dai, Yahao; Su, Qi; Li, Nan; Li, Songsong; Wai, Shinya; Li, Qiang; Shao, Shiyang; Wang, Lixiang; Xu, Jie; Zhang, Xiaohong; Talapin, Dmitri V.; de Pablo, Juan J.; Wang, Sihong

doi:10.1038/s41563-023-01529-w

High-efficiency stretchable light-emitting polymers from thermally activated delayed fluorescence

Journal Article · Thu Apr 06 00:00:00 EDT 2023 · Nature Materials

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-023-01529-w· OSTI ID:2349304

^[1]; Zhang, Cheng ^[1]; ^[1]; Diroll, Benjamin T. ^[2]; ^[1]; ^[1]; ^[3]; ^[3]; ^[1]; Liu, Youdi ^[1]; Dai, Yahao ^[1]; Su, Qi ^[1]; Li, Nan ^[1]; ^[1]; Wai, Shinya ^[1]; Li, Qiang ^[4]; Shao, Shiyang ^[4]; Wang, Lixiang ^[4]; ^[2]; ^[3] more »

University of Chicago, IL (United States)
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Nanoscience and Technology Division
Soochow University, Suzhou (China)
Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Changchun (China)
University of Chicago, IL (United States); Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Nanoscience and Technology Division
University of Chicago, IL (United States); Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Center for Molecular Engineering
University of Chicago, IL (United States); Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Nanoscience and Technology Division; Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States). Center for Molecular Engineering

Stretchable light-emitting materials are the key components for realizing skin-like displays and optical biostimulation. All the stretchable emitters reported to date, to the best of our knowledge, have been based on electroluminescent polymers that only harness singlet excitons, limiting their theoretical quantum yield to 25%. Here we present a design concept for imparting stretchability onto electroluminescent polymers that can harness all the excitons through thermally activated delayed fluorescence, thereby reaching a near-unity theoretical quantum yield. We show that our design strategy of inserting flexible, linear units into a polymer backbone can substantially increase the mechanical stretchability without affecting the underlying electroluminescent processes. As a result, our synthesized polymer achieves a stretchability of 125%, with an external quantum efficiency of 10%. Additionally, we demonstrate a fully stretchable organic light-emitting diode, confirming that the proposed stretchable thermally activated delayed fluorescence polymers provide a path towards simultaneously achieving desirable electroluminescent and mechanical characteristics, including high efficiency, brightness, switching speed and stretchability as well as low driving voltage.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: Dutch Research Council; National Natural Science Foundation of China; National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Materials Sciences & Engineering Division (MSE)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-06CH11357

OSTI ID:: 2349304

Journal Information:: Nature Materials, Journal Name: Nature Materials Journal Issue: 6 Vol. 22; ISSN 1476-1122

Publisher:: Springer NatureCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

References (57)

Fundamentals of Photonics Saleh, Bahaa E. A.; Teich, Malvin Carl John Wiley & Sons, Inc https://doi.org/10.1002/0471213748	book	January 1991
Tough, Semiconducting Polyethylene-poly(3-hexylthiophene) Diblock Copolymers Müller, C.; Goffri, S.; Breiby, D. W. Advanced Functional Materials, Vol. 17, Issue 15 https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.200601248	journal	October 2007
Effect of Nonconjugated Spacers on Mechanical Properties of Semiconducting Polymers for Stretchable Transistors Mun, Jaewan; Wang, Ging-Ji Nathan; Oh, Jin Young Advanced Functional Materials, Vol. 28, Issue 43 https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.201804222	journal	September 2018
Intrinsically Stretchable Polymer Light-Emitting Devices Using Carbon Nanotube-Polymer Composite Electrodes Yu, Zhibin; Niu, Xiaofan; Liu, Zhitian Advanced Materials, Vol. 23, Issue 34 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201101986	journal	July 2011
Highly Stretchable Transistors Using a Microcracked Organic Semiconductor Chortos, Alex; Lim, Josh; To, John W. F. Advanced Materials, Vol. 26, Issue 25 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201305462	journal	April 2014
Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence in Polymers: A New Route toward Highly Efficient Solution Processable OLEDs Nikolaenko, Andrey E.; Cass, Michael; Bourcet, Florence Advanced Materials, Vol. 27, Issue 44 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201501090	journal	October 2015
Stretchable Organometal‐Halide‐Perovskite Quantum‐Dot Light‐Emitting Diodes Li, Yun‐Fei; Chou, Shu‐Yu; Huang, Peng Advanced Materials, Vol. 31, Issue 22 https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.201807516	journal	January 2019
Highly Efficient Nondoped OLEDs with Negligible Efficiency Roll-Off Fabricated from Aggregation-Induced Delayed Fluorescence Luminogens Huang, Jian; Nie, Han; Zeng, Jiajie Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Vol. 56, Issue 42 https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201706752	journal	September 2017
Bridging Small Molecules to Conjugated Polymers: Efficient Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence with a Methyl‐Substituted Phenylene Linker Rao, Jiancheng; Liu, Xinrui; Li, Xuefei Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Vol. 59, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201912556	journal	December 2019
Through‐Space Charge‐Transfer Polynorbornenes with Fixed and Controllable Spatial Alignment of Donor and Acceptor for High‐Efficiency Blue Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence Li, Qiang; Hu, Jun; Lv, Jianhong Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Vol. 59, Issue 45 https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202008912	journal	August 2020
Packing optimization for automated generation of complex system's initial configurations for molecular dynamics and docking Martínez, José Mario; Martínez, Leandro Journal of Computational Chemistry, Vol. 24, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1002/jcc.10216	journal	May 2003
PACKMOL: A package for building initial configurations for molecular dynamics simulations Martínez, L.; Andrade, R.; Birgin, E. G. Journal of Computational Chemistry, Vol. 30, Issue 13 https://doi.org/10.1002/jcc.21224	journal	October 2009
Fast Parallel Algorithms for Short-Range Molecular Dynamics Plimpton, Steve Journal of Computational Physics, Vol. 117, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1006/jcph.1995.1039	journal	March 1995
Emerging Modalities and Implantable Technologies for Neuromodulation Won, Sang Min; Song, Enming; Reeder, Jonathan T. Cell, Vol. 181, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2020.02.054	journal	April 2020
GROMACS: High performance molecular simulations through multi-level parallelism from laptops to supercomputers Abraham, Mark James; Murtola, Teemu; Schulz, Roland SoftwareX, Vol. 1-2 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.softx.2015.06.001	journal	September 2015
Elastomeric Light Emitting Polymer Enhanced by Interpenetrating Networks Gao, Huier; Chen, Si; Liang, Jiajie ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, Vol. 8, Issue 47 https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.6b10447	journal	November 2016
Conjugated Polyelectrolyte Blend with Polyethyleneimine Ethoxylated for Thickness-Insensitive Electron Injection Layers in Organic Light-Emitting Devices Ohisa, Satoru; Kato, Tetsuya; Takahashi, Tatsuya ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, Vol. 10, Issue 20 https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.8b00752	journal	May 2018
Molecular Engineering of Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence Emitters with Aggregation-Induced Emission via Introducing Intramolecular Hydrogen-Bonding Interactions for Efficient Solution-Processed Nondoped OLEDs Ma, Fulong; Zhao, Guimin; Zheng, Yu ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, Vol. 12, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.9b17545	journal	December 2019
Blue Thermally Activated Delayed Fluorescence Polymers with Nonconjugated Backbone and Through-Space Charge Transfer Effect Shao, Shiyang; Hu, Jun; Wang, Xingdong Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol. 139, Issue 49 https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.7b10257	journal	November 2017
Silver Nanowire Percolation Network Soldered with Graphene Oxide at Room Temperature and Its Application for Fully Stretchable Polymer Light-Emitting Diodes Liang, Jiajie; Li, Lu; Tong, Kwing ACS Nano, Vol. 8, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1021/nn405887k	journal	January 2014
Highly efficient phosphorescent emission from organic electroluminescent devices Baldo, M. A.; O'Brien, D. F.; You, Y. Nature, Vol. 395, Issue 6698, p. 151-154 https://doi.org/10.1038/25954	journal	September 1998
Spin-dependent exciton formation in π-conjugated compounds Wilson, J. S.; Dhoot, A. S.; Seeley, A. J. A. B. Nature, Vol. 413, Issue 6858 https://doi.org/10.1038/35101565	journal	October 2001
Universal high work function flexible anode for simplified ITO-free organic and perovskite light-emitting diodes with ultra-high efficiency Jeong, Su-Hun; Woo, Seong-Hoon; Han, Tae-Hee NPG Asia Materials, Vol. 9, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1038/am.2017.108	journal	July 2017
Highly efficient organic light-emitting diodes from delayed fluorescence Uoyama, Hiroki; Goushi, Kenichi; Shizu, Katsuyuki Nature, Vol. 492, Issue 7428 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11687	journal	December 2012
Intrinsically stretchable and healable semiconducting polymer for organic transistors Oh, Jin Young; Rondeau-Gagné, Simon; Chiu, Yu-Cheng Nature, Vol. 539, Issue 7629 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature20102	journal	November 2016
Skin electronics from scalable fabrication of an intrinsically stretchable transistor array Wang, Sihong; Xu, Jie; Wang, Weichen Nature, Vol. 555, Issue 7694 https://doi.org/10.1038/nature25494	journal	February 2018
Organic light emitting board for dynamic interactive display Kim, Eui Hyuk; Cho, Sung Hwan; Lee, Ju Han Nature Communications, Vol. 8, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms14964	journal	April 2017
Stretchable active-matrix organic light-emitting diode display using printable elastic conductors Sekitani, Tsuyoshi; Nakajima, Hiroyoshi; Maeda, Hiroki Nature Materials, Vol. 8, Issue 6, p. 494-499 https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2459	journal	May 2009
Waterproof AlInGaP optoelectronics on stretchable substrates with applications in biomedicine and robotics Kim, Rak-Hwan; Kim, Dae-Hyeong; Xiao, Jianliang Nature Materials, Vol. 9, Issue 11, p. 929-937 https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat2879	journal	October 2010
Deep blue phosphorescent organic light-emitting diodes with very high brightness and efficiency Lee, Jaesang; Chen, Hsiao-Fan; Batagoda, Thilini Nature Materials, Vol. 15, Issue 1, p. 92-98 https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat4446	journal	October 2015
Ultrathin, highly flexible and stretchable PLEDs White, Matthew S.; Kaltenbrunner, Martin; Głowacki, Eric D. Nature Photonics, Vol. 7, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2013.188	journal	July 2013
Elastomeric polymer light-emitting devices and displays Liang, Jiajie; Li, Lu; Niu, Xiaofan Nature Photonics, Vol. 7, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2013.242	journal	September 2013
A transparent, self-healing and high-κ dielectric for low-field-emission stretchable optoelectronics Tan, Yu Jun; Godaba, Hareesh; Chen, Ge Nature Materials, Vol. 19, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-019-0548-4	journal	December 2019
An integrated self-healable electronic skin system fabricated via dynamic reconstruction of a nanostructured conducting network Son, Donghee; Kang, Jiheong; Vardoulis, Orestis Nature Nanotechnology, Vol. 13, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-018-0244-6	journal	August 2018
A wireless closed-loop system for optogenetic peripheral neuromodulation Mickle, Aaron D.; Won, Sang Min; Noh, Kyung Nim Nature, Vol. 565, Issue 7739 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0823-6	journal	January 2019
Large-area display textiles integrated with functional systems Shi, Xiang; Zuo, Yong; Zhai, Peng Nature, Vol. 591, Issue 7849 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03295-8	journal	March 2021
High-brightness all-polymer stretchable LED with charge-trapping dilution Zhang, Zhitao; Wang, Weichen; Jiang, Yuanwen Nature, Vol. 603, Issue 7902 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04400-1	journal	March 2022
Miniaturized wireless, skin-integrated sensor networks for quantifying full-body movement behaviors and vital signs in infants Jeong, Hyoyoung; Kwak, Sung Soo; Sohn, Seokwoo Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 118, Issue 43 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2104925118	journal	October 2021
Visualization and analysis of atomistic simulation data with OVITO–the Open Visualization Tool Stukowski, Alexander Modelling and Simulation in Materials Science and Engineering, Vol. 18, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1088/0965-0393/18/1/015012	journal	December 2009
Excitonic singlet-triplet ratios in molecular and polymeric organic materials Segal, M.; Baldo, M. A.; Holmes, R. J. Physical Review B, Vol. 68, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.68.075211	journal	August 2003
Molecular plasticity of polymeric glasses in the elastic regime Papakonstantopoulos, George J.; Riggleman, Robert A.; Barrat, Jean-Louis Physical Review E, Vol. 77, Issue 4 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.77.041502	journal	April 2008
Local versus Global Stretched Mechanical Response in a Supercooled Liquid near the Glass Transition Shang, Baoshuang; Rottler, Jörg; Guan, Pengfei Physical Review Letters, Vol. 122, Issue 10 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.105501	journal	March 2019
Mechanical Heterogeneities in Model Polymer Glasses at Small Length Scales Yoshimoto, Kenji; Jain, Tushar S.; Workum, Kevin Van Physical Review Letters, Vol. 93, Issue 17 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.93.175501	journal	October 2004
Predicting plasticity in disordered solids from structural indicators Richard, D.; Ozawa, M.; Patinet, S. Physical Review Materials, Vol. 4, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.4.113609	journal	November 2020
High-efficiency organic light-emitting diodes Patel, N. K.; Cina, S.; Burroughes, J. H. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, Vol. 8, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1109/2944.999190	journal	January 2002
Intrinsically stretchable organic light-emitting diodes Kim, Jin-Hoon; Park, Jin-Woo Science Advances, Vol. 7, Issue 9 https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abd9715	journal	February 2021
Highly stretchable electroluminescent skin for optical signaling and tactile sensing Larson, C.; Peele, B.; Li, S. Science, Vol. 351, Issue 6277 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aac5082	journal	March 2016
High-performance light-emitting diodes based on carbene-metal-amides Di, Dawei; Romanov, Alexander S.; Yang, Le Science, Vol. 356, Issue 6334 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aah4345	journal	March 2017
Highly stretchable polymer semiconductor films through the nanoconfinement effect Xu, Jie; Wang, Sihong; Wang, Ging-Ji Nathan Science, Vol. 355, Issue 6320 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aah4496	journal	January 2017
Eliminating nonradiative decay in Cu(I) emitters: >99% quantum efficiency and microsecond lifetime Hamze, Rasha; Peltier, Jesse L.; Sylvinson, Daniel Science, Vol. 363, Issue 6427 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aav2865	journal	February 2019
Artificial multimodal receptors based on ion relaxation dynamics You, Insang; Mackanic, David G.; Matsuhisa, Naoji Science, Vol. 370, Issue 6519 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aba5132	journal	November 2020
Nanomesh pressure sensor for monitoring finger manipulation without sensory interference Lee, Sunghoon; Franklin, Sae; Hassani, Faezeh Arab Science, Vol. 370, Issue 6519 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abc9735	journal	November 2020
Monolithic optical microlithography of high-density elastic circuits Zheng, Yu-Qing; Liu, Yuxin; Zhong, Donglai Science, Vol. 373, Issue 6550 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abh3551	journal	July 2021
Highly conductive and elastic nanomembrane for skin electronics Jung, Dongjun; Lim, Chaehong; Shim, Hyung Joon Science, Vol. 373, Issue 6558 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abh4357	journal	August 2021
Avogadro: an advanced semantic chemical editor, visualization, and analysis platform Hanwell, Marcus D.; Curtis, Donald E.; Lonie, David C. Journal of Cheminformatics, Vol. 4, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1186/1758-2946-4-17	journal	August 2012
Status of and prospects for organic electroluminescence Rothberg, Lewis J.; Lovinger, Andrew J. Journal of Materials Research, Vol. 11, Issue 12 https://doi.org/10.1557/JMR.1996.0403	journal	December 1996
Modeling Deformation and Flow of Disordered Materials Barrat, Jean-Louis; de Pablo, Juan J. MRS Bulletin, Vol. 32, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1557/mrs2007.192	journal	November 2007

Similar Records

High-efficiency white organic light-emitting diodes using thermally activated delayed fluorescence

Journal Article · Mon Jun 09 00:00:00 EDT 2014 · Applied Physics Letters · OSTI ID:22300038

Depolymerizable and recyclable luminescent polymers with high light-emitting efficiencies

Journal Article · Sun Jul 21 20:00:00 EDT 2024 · Nature Sustainability · OSTI ID:2571494

Thermally activated delayed fluorescence from {sup 3}nπ* to {sup 1}nπ* up-conversion and its application to organic light-emitting diodes

Journal Article · Mon Jul 07 00:00:00 EDT 2014 · Applied Physics Letters · OSTI ID:22303955

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
electronic devices
organic LEDs
polymers

High-efficiency stretchable light-emitting polymers from thermally activated delayed fluorescence

Citation Formats

References (57)

Similar Records

Related Subjects