Thermally stable, strongly luminescent gold-TADF emitters are the clue to realize practical applications of gold metal in next generation display and lighting technology, a scarce example of which is herein described. A series of donor-acceptor type cyclometalated gold(III) alkynyl complexes with some of them displaying highly efficient thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) with Φ up to 88% in thin films and emission lifetimes of ≈1-2 µs at room temperature are developed. The emission color of these complexes is readily tunable from green to red by varying the donor unit and cyclometalating ligand. Vacuum-deposited organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) with these complexes as emissive dopants achieve external quantum efficiencies (EQEs) and luminance of up to 23.4% and 70 300 cd m-2, respectively.
Keywords: gold; ligand‐to‐ligand charge transfer; organic light‐emitting devices; thermally activated delayed fluorescence.