Protecting Benzylic CH Bonds by Deuteration Doubles the Operational Lifetime of Deep‐Blue Ir‐Phenylimidazole Dopants in Phosphorescent OLEDs (Advanced Optical Materials 16/2021).

Deuterating the vulnerable benzylic C-H bonds, which are proposed to participate in the degradative reaction, allows for taking advantage of the innately slower C-D cleavage reaction rate to protect the Ir-dopants. Keywords: blue OLEDs; DFT calculations; homoleptic Ir(III) complex; kinetic isotope effect; operational lifetime EN blue OLEDs DFT calculations homoleptic Ir(III) complex kinetic isotope effect operational lifetime 1 1 1 02/15/22 20210815 NES 210815 The kinetic isotope effect (KIE) can be used to improve the operational lifetime by stabilizing a series of blue Ir-dopants in phosphorescent OLED devices (see article number 2100630 by Hye Jin Bae and co-workers). Protecting Benzylic C H Bonds by Deuteration Doubles the Operational Lifetime of Deep-Blue Ir-Phenylimidazole Dopants in Phosphorescent OLEDs (Advanced Optical Materials 16/2021). [Extracted from the article]