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

在这个由化学部化学结构、动力学和机制B项目资助的CAREER项目中，加州大学洛杉矶分校（UCLA）化学和生物化学系的Alexander Spokoyny教授正在开发新的发光过渡金属基配合物，其特征是硼簇结构块，用于发光照明应用。这项研究的目标是使用这些独特的基于硼簇的支架来制造稳定高效的深蓝发射器，用于有机发光二极管（OLED）设备，可能会导致下一代电视屏幕，移动电话显示器和固态照明光源。该项目处于合成无机化学、有机金属化学和材料化学的交叉点，非常适合各级科研人员的教育和培训。他们选择了三个主要的目标受众，包括参加暑期科学夏令营的初高中学生，以及作为加州大学洛杉矶分校监狱教育项目一部分的加州妇女研究所（CIW）的囚犯。这些教育和拓展活动让年轻的学生对科学事业可能带来的积极变化感到兴奋。本项目的重点是基于多面体硼簇的新型光物理无害配体支架的开发。目前使用的经典多芳配体在平坦的方形几何平面内连接到金属中心，由于分子间堆叠相互作用，可能导致不良的颜色稀释和非辐射衰变途径。硼簇被用来抵消这些问题，提供了三维立体体，能够最大限度地减少固态中的分子间相互作用。此外，硼簇配体在合成上很有吸引力，因为它们将官能团放置在特定的顶点上，从而允许很大程度的可调性。在这个项目中，新的取代化学被用来通过配位到铂（II）中心来调整发射器的颜色。此外，硼簇可以在其非功能化形式下提供非常大的前沿轨道间隙，使它们在设计金属基磷光发射器的背景下具有光物理上的无害性。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知识价值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.