CAREER: Phosphorescent Organic Light Emitting Diode Materials Featuring Multidentate Carborane-Based Ligands

在这个由化学系化学结构、动力学和机理B计划资助的职业项目中，加州大学洛杉矶分校(UCLA)化学和生物化学系的Alexander Spokoyny教授正在开发用于发光照明应用的新型发光过渡金属络合物。这项研究的目标是使用这些独特的基于硼簇合物的支架来创造稳定而高效的深蓝色发射器，用于有机发光二极管(OLED)设备，可能导致下一代电视屏幕、移动电话显示器和固态光源。该项目位于合成无机化学、有机金属化学和材料化学的交界处，非常适合各级科学家的教育和培训。作为加州大学洛杉矶分校监狱教育项目的一部分，选定了三个主要目标受众，包括通过实验夏季科学夏令营的初中生和高中生，以及加州妇女研究所(CIW)的囚犯成员。这些教育和外展活动使年轻学生对科学事业可能带来的潜在积极变化感到兴奋。该项目的中心是开发基于多面体硼簇合物的新型光物理无害的配体支架。由于分子间的堆积作用，目前使用的经典多芳香族配体附着在平面正方形几何结构内的金属中心上，会导致不希望看到的颜色稀释和非辐射衰减路径。硼团簇被用来抵消这些问题，提供了能够最小化固态中分子间相互作用的三维空间块体。此外，由于硼原子簇配体将官能团放置在特定的顶点，从而允许很大程度的可调性，因此在合成上具有吸引力。在这个项目中，新的取代化学被用来通过配位到铂(II)中心的配体来调节发射体的颜色。此外，在设计金属基磷光发射体的背景下，硼团簇物种可能会以其非功能化的形式提供非常大的前沿轨道间隙，使它们在光物理上是无害的。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

In this CAREER project, funded by the Chemical Structure, Dynamics & Mechanisms B Program of the Chemistry Division, Professor Alexander Spokoyny of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) are developing new luminescent transition metal-based complexes featuring boron cluster building blocks for use in luminescent lighting applications. The goal of this research is to use these unique boron cluster-based scaffolds to create stable and efficient deep blue emitters for use in organic light emitting diode (OLED) devices, potentially resulting in the next generation of television screens, mobile phone displays, and solid-state lighting sources. The project lies at the interface of synthetic inorganic, organometallic and materials chemistry, and is well suited for the education and training of scientists at all levels. Three key target audiences were chosen for outreach, which include middle and high school students through experimental summer science camps, and inmate members of the California Institute for Women (CIW) as part of the UCLA Prison Education project. These educational and outreach activities create excitement towards the potential positive changes scientific careers can hold for younger students. This project centers on the development of new photophysically-innocent ligand scaffolds based on polyhedral boron clusters. Currently utilized classical polyaromatic ligands attached to metal centers within the flat square planar geometry can lead to undesirable color dilution and non-radiative decay pathways due to intermolecular stacking interactions. Boron clusters are used to counteract these issues providing the three-dimensional steric bulk capable of minimizing intermolecular interactions in the solid-state. Furthermore, boron cluster ligands are synthetically appealing, given that they place functional groups at specific vertices, thus allowing for a large degree of tunability. In this project, new substitution chemistry is used to tune the emitter color through the ligand coordinated to the platinum(II)center. Furthermore, boron cluster species may provide extraordinarily large frontier orbital gaps in their unfunctionalized form, making them photophysically innocent in the context of designing metal-based phosphorescent emitters.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.