Progresses and Perspectives of Near-Infrared Emission Materials with 'Heavy Metal-Free' Organic Compounds for Electroluminescence

Organic/polymer light-emitting diodes (OLEDs/PLEDs) have attracted a rising number of investigations due to their promising applications for high-resolution fullcolor displays and energy-saving solid-state lightings. Near-infrared (NIR) emitting dyes have gained increasing attention for their potential applications in electroluminescence and optical imaging in optical tele-communication platforms, sensing and medical diagnosis in recent decades. And a growing number of people focus on the “heavy metal-free” NIR electroluminescent materials to gain more design freedom with cost advantage. This review presents recent progresses in conjugated polymers and organic molecules for OLEDs/PLEDs according to their different luminous mechanism and constructing systems. The relationships between the organic fluorophores structures and electroluminescence properties are the main focus of this review. Finally, the approaches to enhance the performance of NIR OLEDs/PLEDs are described briefly. We hope that this review could provide a new perspective for NIR materials and inspire breakthroughs in fundamental research and applications.