Bimetallic cyclometalated iridium(III) diastereomers with non-innocent bridging ligands for high-efficiency phosphorescent OLEDs.

Two phosphorescent dinuclear iridium(III) diastereomers (ΛΔ/ΔΛ) and (ΛΛ/ΔΔ) are readily separated by making use of their different solubilities in hot hexane. The bridging diarylhydrazide ligand plays an important role in the electrochemistry and photophysics of the complexes. Organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs) that use these complexes as the green-emissive dopants in solution-processable single-active-layer architectures feature electroluminescence efficiencies that are remarkably high for dinuclear metal complexes, achieving maximum values of 37 cd A(-1), 14 lm W(-1), and 11% external quantum efficiency.