Synthesis of heterocycles for OLED applications

Organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) have in recent decades gained increasing importance in lightning and in displays, spreading fast outside simple laboratory research.This thesis concentrates on the synthesis of substituted heterocycles and their use in OLED applications.The first chapter describes the basic principles behind OLEDs and their development and uses up to date. It also provides an overview of the classes of organic compounds – both polymers and small molecules – used in OLED applications, and describes the effects of heterocycles in organic molecules used in OLED applications.The second chapter describes the synthesis and optical characterisation of trisubstituted triazines, and the synthesis of gold nanoparticles functionalised with substituted triazines. Physical and optical characterisation of most interesting compounds is also included.The third chapter concentrates on new synthetic strategies for the synthesis of functionalised indoles. The optical properties of indole, together with the fact that inserting a nitrogen heterocycle onto a compound lowers its LUMO and HOMO levels, make it an attractive substituent in OLED applications. In the third chapter a new synthetic approach to quinolines is described, exploiting a Ru-catalysed cross-dehydrogenative coupling between two different primary alcohols, whereas the fifth chapter is dedicated to a one-pot synthesis of β-lactams using benzylic amines as the imine source, and ketenes formed in situ.