GOALI Program: The Study of Luminescent Metal Complexes and their Incorporation as Emitters in Electroluminescent Devices

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This GOALI award by the Inorganic, Bioinorganic and Organometallic Chemistry program in the Division of Chemistry, supports research by a collaborative academic/industrial group headed by Professor Richard Eisenberg at the University of Rochester, Professor Jonas Peters at the California Institute of Technology, and scientists at the Eastman Kodak Company. The goal is to design, synthesize, and study gold(I) and copper(I) complexes for use in electroluminescent or OLED (organic light-emitting diode) devices. Complexes of these ions are often luminescent with bright solid state photoemission at room temperature. Among Au(I) systems to be studied, new trinuclear complexes will be synthesized and a set of emissive dinuclear Au(I) complexes will be modified with the dual objectives of overall charge neutrality and structural integrity. Both of these features are deemed necessary for device incorporation based on vapor deposition. Luminescent mono- and dinuclear Cu(I) complexes including a neutral dinuclear Cu(I) complex having a diamond-core structure and mononuclear Cu(I) systems with distorted tetrahedral geometries will also be examined. Further work to elucidate how ligand variation influences the emission in these and related complexes will be conducted so that the emission characteristics of the complexes can be systematically modified. The new systems will be incorporated into prototype OLED devices and assayed for electroluminescence and stability under operating conditions. For selected dopant emitters the mechanisms by which they are excited and the factors limiting their efficiency will be investigated. This information will be used to identify molecular property alterations that produce improved performance in OLED materials and displays. Flat panel displays from cellphones and hand-held devices to lap-top computers and televisions represent a tremendous economic growth area. The new metal complexes developed in this project will be studied to improve the efficiency of materials used as light emitting displays in electronic devices. Undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral students will be involved in this project. The students will have interactions with industrial chemists, thus expanding the scope and perspective of their education and training.