Highly Phosphorescent Planar Chirality by Bridging Two Square-Planar Platinum(II) Complexes: Chirality Induction and Circularly Polarized Luminescence

Chiral organometallic complexes have demonstrated many potential and practical applications. However, building metal-induced chirality for square-planar complexes still remains a big challenge, because their 2D planar molecular structures are usually superimposable on their mirror images. Herein, we report a straightforward and efficient way to achieve a novel kind of planar chirality by constructing 3D double-layer molecular structures. When the achiral ligand 1,3,4-oxadiazole-2-thiol (OXT) was used to bridge two square-planar complexes, a pair of racemic R/S planar-chiral binuclear Pt(II) complexes was obtained, which could be separated by chiral high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Moreover, enantiopure R,R,R or S,S,S complexes could be prepared by the use of chiral (R)-/(S)-binaphthalene-derived OXT ligands in 99% diastereoselectivity without the use of chiral HPLC. The binaphthalene groups help to ensure good solubility and a smooth amorphous thin film morphology but have little effect on the photophysical properties. The resultant complexes display strong orange-red and near-infrared phosphorescence with quantum yields of up to 83.4% and can be applied as emitters in highly efficient solution-processed organic light-emitting diodes to achieve luminance, luminance efficiency, external quantum efficiency, and an asymmetry factor of up to 3.22 × 104 cd m-2, 28.7 cd A-1, 14.3%, and 2.0 × 10-3, respectively. With a comprehensive consideration of EL efficiency and the asymmetry factor, this is the best performance among Pt(II) complex based circularly polarized OLEDs. Therefore, this work provides a new and simple strategy to build planar chirality for chiroptical and circularly polarized luminescence applications.