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This work reports the incorporation of a triphenylamine‐based macrocyclic donor to design new donor‐π‐acceptor‐configured blue thermally activated delayed fluorescence (TADF) emitters. The X‐ray structure analyses manifest the degree of twisted conformations that can be modulated by methyl substituents of the π‐bridge and macrocyclic donor, leading to well‐separated highest occupied natural transition orbital and lowest unoccupied natural transition orbital frontier orbitals, thus sufficiently small singlet–triplet energy difference (ΔEST) for TADF. The theoretical analyses elucidate the structure–property relationship and reveal the beneficial effect of macrocyclic donor on increasing reverse intersystem crossing (RISC) process that can contribute to improved triplet‐upconversion efficiency. The blue device employing c‐NN‐TRZ as emitter gave a maximum external quantum efficiecny (EQEmax) of 26.3% as compared to that (19.1%) of the device using the model compound DPA‐MeTRZ without the macrocyclic donor, suggesting the contribution of macrocyclic donor to enhance device performance. Benefiting from the combined advantages of macrocyclic donor and methyl substituents, the device incorporating c‐NN‐MeTRZ as emitter achieves an outstanding EQEmax of 32.2%, which is attributed to the more horizontally oriented emission dipoles as well as the significantly accelerated RISC rate constant (kRISC) resulting from reduced ΔEST. This work represents a new strategy of designing twisted TADF emitter incorporating macrocyclic donor to achieve highly efficient blue device. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ultralong‐lived upconversion luminescence with the lifetime of 0.48 s in a broad spectral range (530–650 nm) is observed in CD49 (9‐(3‐(5‐bromopyridin‐3‐yl)prop‐2‐yn‐1‐yl)‐9H‐carbazole) crystal designed with donor–acceptor (carbazole–pyridine) structures under infrared excitation, simultaneously accompanied with second harmonic generation (SHG). This phenomenon indicates orderly packing donor–acceptor structures form a nonlinearly polarizable ferroelectric‐like lattice with ultralong‐lived light‐emitting states, leading to much prolonged nonlinear optical behaviors. The persistent upconversion luminescence together with SHG is largely reduced when lowering crystallinity. This implies that nonlinearly polarizable ferroelectric‐like lattice provides the necessary condition to generate persistent upconversion luminescence. Evidently, persistent upconversion luminescence becomes completely lacking when only using ultralong‐lived light‐emitting states without nonlinearly polarizable ferroelectric‐like lattice, exampled by 4‐(dimethylamino)benzonitrile dispersed in polyvinyl alcohol matrix. Magneto‐photoluminescence shows that persistent upconversion luminescence is essentially a super‐delayed fluorescence from crystalline intermolecular charge‐transfer excitons formed in the nonlinearly polarizable ferroelectric‐like lattice. Magnetodielectrics indicate crystalline intermolecular charge‐transfer excitons are coupled with nonlinearly polarizable ferroelectric‐like lattice, leading to prolonged nonlinear optical behaviors shown as persistent upconversion luminescence through super delayed fluorescence. Therefore, crystalline intermolecular charge‐transfer excitons formed in nonlinearly polarizable ferroelectric‐like lattice provide an interesting platform to generate prolonged nonlinear optical behaviors toward developing persistent upconversion luminescence under multiphoton excitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]