Iridium(III)‐Catalyzed Diarylation/Annulation of Benzoic Acids: Facile Access to Multi‐Aryl Spirobifluorenes as Pure Hydrocarbon Hosts for High‐Performance OLEDs.

Herein disclosed is the first example of diarylation/annulation of benzoic acids via an iridium catalyst system. This protocol provides a step‐economic and highly efficient pathway to 1‐aryl, 1,3‐diaryl, 1,7‐diaryl and 1,3,7‐triaryl spirobifluorenes from readily available starting materials. The applications of multi‐aryl spirobifluorenes as pure hydrocarbon (PHC) hosts for red, green, and blue (RGB) phosphorescent organic light‐emitting diodes (PhOLEDs) were explored. Due to high triplet energies, 1,3‐diaryl spirobifluorenes exhibit the potential as the host material of blue PhOLEDs. 1,7‐Diaryl spirobifluorene can serve as the host of green PhOLEDs. 1,3,7‐Triaryl spirobifluorene is a high‐performance host for red PhOLEDs, which exhibits a high external quantum efficiency (EQE) up to 27.3 %. This work not only exemplifies the great potential of multi‐aryl spirobifluorenes as PHC hosts, but also offers a new approach for the synthesis of these PHC hosts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]