The design, synthesis and performance of thermally activated delayed fluorescence macromolecules

Since the first application of thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) materials in organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs), rapid development and huge progress have been made. At present, the reported TADF materials with high device performance can achieve electroluminescence (EL) with emission colors nearly covering the whole visible ranges. Following the design strategy for TADF small molecules, many macromolecular emitters with different emission colors have been reported to date. Nevertheless, there are realistically a lot of hurdles to surmount when developing low-cost displays and lighting products using macromolecules through the wet processing technology. It confirmedly engrossed us to depict the correlation between emission colors and molecular structures or fabrication of OLED devices in depth. In this context, this review has been written to provide an overview on the TADF mechanism, the design strategy of TADF macromolecules and typical solution-processed polymeric and dendritic emitters organized herein as a function of EL emission colors.