PROJECT 4

• Photophysical Property of an Organometallic Copper Emitter 

Recent development of luminescent molecular systems has been rapidly expanded with accompanying photophysical properties for the desired functions such as biological imaging, photochemical catalysis and electroluminescent devices. Especially along with various organic molecular emitters, phosphorescent transition metal complexes have been intensively studied for the OLED application. With the tendency of strong spin-orbit coupling, heavy transition metals are known to enhance the quantum efficiency by utilizing both singlet and triplet excitons. But this is somewhat limited to the few phosphorescent emitters employing expensive and rare noble metals such as iridium and ruthenium. Due to the rapid growing global market price of such rare metals, the emitters utilizing earth abundant metals are currently drawing attraction due to their economic advantage and stable supply. Unusual photophysical properties of a series of copper complexes supported by phosphine containing ligands are recently reported with tunable emission wavelength and reasonably quantum efficiency. Photophysical property of metal complexes can be adjusted by altering a local geometry about a metal center. In this project, we develop a new copper system where we can examine how the geometrical change of a metal ion affects on the emission properties. In particular, we currently tune the energy gap between triplet and singlet excited states of copper-based emitters to effectively access to thermally activated delayed fluorescence.

Selected Publications

1. “Photophysical Tuning of the σ–SiH Copper-Carbazolide Complexes To Give Deep-Blue Emission” Brannan, A. C. and Lee, Y.* Inorg. Chem.  2020, 59, 315-324.

2. “σ–Complexation as a Strategy for Designing Copper-Based Light Emitters” Kim. Y.-E., Kim, J., Park, J. W., Park, K.* and Lee, Y.* Chem. Commun. 2017, 53, 2858-2861.