Over the last three decades, the performance of OLEDs has been improved rapidly, however, as an important assessment for OLED, the EQE data are still quite low. As outlined in the theoretical background, the EQE is the product of out-coupling efficiency and internal quantum efficiency (IQE). Therefore, this thesis focuses on designing two types of polymers with different optical functionalities, to increase the EQE addressing the two aforementioned determining factors. Thus, the first part of the thesis addresses the light out-coupling efficiency in OLED devices. Here high refractive index (HRI) polymers are aimed for as potential material for the out-coupling layer, which are so far scarily reported for application in OLED devices, due to existing limitations, such as limited transparency, extra fluorescence, tedious synthesis, poor thermal stability and low solubility. However, if suitable polymers are becoming easily available, they will offer the unique advantage, compared to low molar mass HRI compounds, of being able to using cost-effective solution based technology for large area film preparation. In addition, polymeric materials will allow to introducing fully new concepts for increasing the light-out-coupling efficiency, like patterning allowing micro-lens preparation, or the incorporation of light scattering particles into the out-coupling layer. The approach described in this thesis is based on a previous work where HRI polymers were prepared via metal-free thiol-yne “A2+B3” polyaddition reaction, which led in an easy one-pot synthesis to hyperbranched polyvinylsulfides of high solubility and already reasonable high RI. For further increasing RI, in this work B3 as well as finally A2 monomers with high naphthalene content were chosen which should, in addition to the positive effect of the sulfur-containing units, render polymers with even higher RI, and hopefully also of high solubility due to the branching. A challenging aspect of this work was to find reaction conditions which allow the preparation of high molar mass as well as highly soluble, highly aromatic polymers by that A2+B3 approach, even so very sterically demanding monomers are used. In addition, the material properties should be fine-tuned by careful selection of the monomer ratio. It was expected that these new, easily available HRI polymers will be of high potential in OLED application. Thus, the work in this part of the thesis comprises on the one hand monomer and polymer synthesis as well as detailed characterization of the structure and the solution and thermal properties of the new materials. But on the other hand, the elucidation of the thin film preparation and the quality and optical properties of the resulting polymer films are major objectives. Finally, evaluation of the performance of the polymer films in an OLED device compared to conventionally low molar mass our-coupling layers was aimed for, which could be realized with the help of partners from the Institute of Applied Photophysics at TU Dresden. For increasing the IQE in OLEDs, this thesis focuses on the development of a new type of polymeric thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) material. TADF materials have the potential of theoretical 100% IQE and are considered as key materials for the next generation of OLEDs. So far, a significant amount of low molar mass TADF molecules has been developed, however, only a limited number of design rules are reported so far for polymers, even though polymers would offer, as already outlined above, significant advantages with regard to processing cost-effectively more efficient OLEDs for large area application. The new concept described in this thesis for TADF polymers is based on a new monomer which exhibits individual promising structural units for achieving TAFD properties but does not emit TADF itself due to its large ΔEST (the energy gap between singlet S1 and triple T1 state). However, it has to be expected that once the monomer is polymerized, the resulting polymeric product will have reduced ΔEST due to the increased conjugation length and thus can be expected to emit TADF. This new concept has the potential to significantly increase the scope of polymeric materials with TADF properties. Thus the second part on the thesis focuses on the design of a new monomer based on carbazole units with a pendant benzophenone moiety and its polymerization and full structural elucidation with the help of model compounds involving intensive NMR and MALDI-TOF analysis. In addition to the expect TADF properties, the benzophenone unit will also provide the possibility for film stabilization and even photopatterning due to photo-crosslinking. Thus the study of film formation and photo-crosslinking of the new TADF polymers was a further objective of this thesis. Finally, first theoretical as well as experimental studies of the photo physical properties of the monomer, a low molar mass model compound and the polymer, again together with the partners from the Institute of Applied Photophysics, should provide evidence on the suitability of the new polymer design principle.

Thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) has been proposed as a pathway to achieve high efficiency organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) without the use of heavy metal atoms in molecular structures. Many different factors can be decisive for efficient light emission from TADF emitters. However, a complete picture of the working mechanisms behind TADF is still missing and further research exploring novel material and device ideas is required. This thesis aims to extend the understanding of TADF emitter and OLED design considerations by investigating photophysical properties of novel materials as well as fabricating, optimizing and characterizing devices. TADF emitters have great potential of being used in OLEDs because they allow for high quantum efficiencies by utilizing triplet states via reverse intersystem crossing (RISC). In small molecules this is done by spatially separating the frontier orbitals, forming an intramolecular charge-transfer state (iCT) and leading to a small energy difference between lowest excited singlet and triplet states (Δ𝐸ST). In polymer emitters, sufficient frontier orbital separation is harder to achieve, and typical strategies usually include adding known TADF units as sidechains onto a polymer backbone. In this thesis, a novel pathway of TADF polymer design is explored. A shift from a non-TADF monomer to TADF oligomers is explored. The monomer shows non-TADF emission and the delayed emission is shown to be of triplet-triplet annihilation (TTA) origin. An iCT state is formed already in the dimer, leading to a much more efficient TADF emission. This is confirmed by an almost two-fold increase of photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY), a decrease in the delayed luminescence lifetime and the respective spectral line shapes of the molecules. Recently, intermolecular effects between small-molecule TADF emitters have been given more attention, revealing strong solid-state solvation or aggregation induced changes of sample performance. Implications of this on device performance are not yet fully covered. A thorough investigation of a novel TADF emitter 5CzCO2Me is conducted. Steady-state emission spectra reveal a luminescence redshift with increasing emitter concentration in a small molecule host. In all investigated concentrations, the emission profile remains the same, thus the redshift is attributed to the solid-state solvation effect. The highest photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) is achieved in the 20 wt% sample, reaching 66 %. The best OLED in terms of current-voltage-luminance and external quantum efficiency parameters is the device with 60 wt% emitter concentration, reaching maximal EQE values of 7.5 %. It is shown that the emitter transports holes and that charge carrier recombination does not take place on the bandgap of the host, but rather, a mixed host-guest concentration dependent recombination is seen. The hole transporting properties of 5CzCO2Me allows for a new dimension in tuning the device performance by controlling the emitter concentration.