Spectroscopic mapping and selective electronic tuning of molecular orbitals in phosphorescent organometallic complexes – a new strategy for OLED materials

• Pascal R. Ewen,
• Jan Sanning,
• Tobias Koch,
• Nikos L. Doltsinis,
• Cristian A. Strassert and
• Daniel Wegner

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2014, 5, 2248–2258, doi:10.3762/bjnano.5.234

• ) are powerful tools to correlate the electronic properties of phosphorescent complexes (i.e., triplet emitters) with their molecular structure as well as the local environment around a single molecule. We used spectroscopic mapping to visualize several occupied and unoccupied molecular frontier

• -defined positions can alter specific molecular orbitals without influencing the others. The results open a path toward the tailored design of electronic and optical properties of triplet emitters by smart ligand substitution, which may improve the performance of future OLED devices. Keywords: charge

• transfer; density-functional theory; frontier orbitals; hybridization; OLED; Pt(II) complex; scanning tunneling microscopy; scanning tunneling spectroscopy; triplet emitters; Introduction Organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs) based on phosphorescent Ir(III) or Pt(II) complexes (also referred to as triplet