Shao‐Fei Ni

≤0.08. Our study provides a new pathway for the design of high-performance violet-blue emitters with a D-π-A architecture in organic electroluminescence applications.

This study establishes the first organocatalytic enantioselective synthesis of axially chiral N,N'-bisindoles via chiral phosphoric acid-catalyzed formal (3+2) cycloadditions of indole-based enaminones as novel platform molecules with 2,3-diketoesters, where de novo indole-ring formation is involved. Using this new strategy, various axially chiral N,N'-bisindoles were synthesized in good yields and with excellent enantioselectivities (up to 87 % yield and 96 % ee). More importantly, this class of axially chiral N,N'-bisindoles exhibited some degree of cytotoxicity toward cancer cells and was derived into axially chiral phosphine ligands with high catalytic activity. This study provides a new strategy for enantioselective synthesis of axially chiral N,N'-bisindoles using asymmetric organocatalysis and is the first to realize the applications of such scaffolds in medicinal chemistry and asymmetric catalysis.

-aryl glycosides, while enabling the assembly of fluorescent-labeled glycoamino acids. The C-H activation approach represents an expedient and efficient strategy for peptide late-stage diversification in a programmable as well as chemo-, regio-, and diastereo-selective fashion.

A propargylic amination approach toward chiral acyclic α-quaternary α-amino ketones is described. This Cu-catalyzed procedure could be performed open to air using commercially available amines as nucleophiles. The key to success is the use of rationally designed propargylic cyclic carbonates as substrates, which can generate a Cu-bonded enolate zwitterionic intermediate upon decarboxylation. This protocol features wide functional group tolerance and high asymmetric induction, with typical ee value higher than 93%, and thus advances a great step forward in the challenging synthesis of acyclic chiral α-quaternary α-amino ketones.

Organic materials containing arylamines have been widely used as hole-transporting materials as well as emitters in organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs). However, it has been pointed out that the C-N bonds in these arylamines can easily suffer from degradation in excited states, especially in deep-blue OLEDs. In this work, phenanthro[9,10-d]imidazole (PI) is proposed as a potential donor with higher stability than those of arylamines. Using PI as the donor, a donor-acceptor type deep-blue fluorophore 1-phenyl-2-(4″-(1-phenyl-1H-benzo[d]imidazol-2-yl)-[1,1':4',1″-terphenyl]-4-yl)-1H-phenanthro[9,10-d]imidazole (BITPI) is designed and synthesized. Results from UV-aging test on neat films of BITPI and other three arylamine compounds demonstrate that PI is indeed a more stable donor comparing to common arylamines. An OLED using BITPI as an emitter exhibits good device performances (EQE over 7%) with stable deep-blue emission (color index: (0.15, 0.13)) and longer operation lifetime than the similarly structured device using arylamine-based emitter. Single-organic layer device based on BITPI also shows superior performances, which are comparable to the best results from the arylamine-based donor-acceptor emitters, suggesting that PI is a stable donor with good hole transport/injection capability.