Fluorene-based oligomers as red light-emitting materials: a density functional theory study

The electronic structures, charge injection and transport, absorption and emission spectra, properties of two series of fluorene-based oligomers {2-2-{2-5-(9H-Fluoren-3-yl)-thiophen-2-yl]-vinyl}-6-(2-thiophen-2-yl-vinyl)-pyran- 4-ylidene]-malononitrile} _n (FTPM) _n and {2-{2-{2-5-(9H-Fluoren-2-yl)-2-hydroxy- 3-methoxy-phenyl]-vinyl}-6-2-(2-hydroxy-3-methoxy-phenyl)-vinyl]-pyran-4- ylidene}-malononitrile} _n (FOOPM) _n (n = 1–4) have been investigated by the density functional theory (DFT) approach. The ground-state geometries of (FTPM)₄ and (FOOPM)₄ optimized at B3LYP/6-31G(d) level exhibited zigzag arrangements. The energies of HOMO and LUMO, HOMO–LUMO energy gaps (ΔE _H–L ) of (FTPM) _n and (FOOPM) _n (n = ∞) were obtained by linear extrapolation method. Moreover, the calculations of ionization potential (IP), electronic affinity (EA), and reorganization energy (λ) were used to evaluate the charge injection and transport abilities. For (FTPM)₄ and (FOOPM)₄, the TDDFT calculations revealed that the absorption peaks can be characterized as π–π* transition and couple with the location of electron density distribution changes in different repeat units. All the earlier theoretical investigations are intended to establish the structure–property relationships, which can provide guidance to design the organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) with high performance.