Density functional theory (DFT) calculations based on optimized S
0 structures at the B3LYP/6–31G(d,p) level were performed to investigate the electronic distribution and excited-state energy levels. Because the donor naphthyl aryl moieties and the acceptor oxidized thioxanthones of
S-
2/
S-
4 are chemically bonded at a large torsion angle, the highest occupied molecular orbitals (HOMOs) and lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMOs) of these emitters are distributed over the donor and acceptor moieties respectively (
Fig. 2), resulting in a weaken exchange interaction between the HOMOs and the LUMOs and thus a small Δ
EST. The electrochemical properties were determined by cyclic voltammetry in anhydrous DCM and THF solution to evaluate the HOMO and LUMO levels (Fig. S4 in Supporting information).
R-
1 and
R-
3 have similar HOMO levels of −5.90 eV and −5.99 eV, whereas
R-
2 and
R-
4 possess slightly deeper HOMO levels at −6.03 eV and −6.10 eV, respectively. At the same time, the LUMO levels of
R-
2/
R-
4 at −3.39 eV/−3.45 eV are much deeper than
R-
1/
R-
3 at −2.82 eV/−2.91 eV, consistent with the enhanced electron-withdrawing ability of thioxanthone upon oxidation and DFT calculated trends. According to Fermi’s golden rule (
kRISC∝ ⟨S
1|Ĥ
SO|T
1⟩
2/Δ
EST) [
26], fast reverse intersystem crossing (RISC) could be achieved by enhancing the spin-orbit coupling (SOC) matrix element and reducing Δ
EST between the excited singlet state (S
1) and triplet state (T
1) to construct efficient TADF materials [
27]. Time-dependent DFT (TD-DFT) calculations for the optimized ground-state geometries were performed in order to further understand the excited states behaviors and spin-flip processes of those molecules (
Fig. 3 and Fig. S5 in Supporting information). The lowest-excited S
1 for
S-
2 and
S-
4 (2.916 eV/2.929 eV) were dominated by the ICT transitions with obvious decrease of spatial overlap of hole and electron wavefunctions, resulting in much lower
1CT energy levels compared to
S-
1 and
S-
3 (3.359 eV/3.486 eV). The T
1 state of
S-
1~
S-
3 (2.597 eV/2.576 eV/2.588 eV) all exhibited similar local excited features where the hole and particle were entirely localized in the vicinity of electron-donating binaphthyl moiety, and therefore showing close
3LE energy levels. However, for the
3LE
1 state of emitter
S-
4, the overlaps of hole and electron density distributions extended to a small part of the oxy-thioxanthone unit in addition to the binaphthyl moiety, leading to a decrease in energy to 2.497 eV. The triplet states of these emitters were closely related to the local excited states of binaphthyl skeleton and thus exhibited close energy levels. However, the oxidized compounds
S-
2 and
S-
4 showed obvious ICT characteristics, which greatly reduced
1CT energies, thereby reducing the Δ
EST. The Δ
EST values of
S-
1,
S-
2,
S-
3 and
S-
4 were 0.76, 0.34, 0.90 and 0.43 eV, respectively, which were much higher than the experimentally measured results but consistent with the tendency of experimental results (Fig. S8 in Supporting information). According to the El-Sayed rule [
28], the obvious difference in the excitation character of the S
1 and T
1 could facilitate the spin-flip processes and contribute to the RISC processes. The calculated SOC matrix elements of
S-
1 and
S-
3 between the mixed hybrid local and charge-transfer (HLCT) S
1 state and local excited T
1 state achieved relatively large values of 0.55 cm
−1 and 0.63 cm
−1, respectively. Despite their relatively large SOC matrix elements,
S-
1 and
S-
3 were unlikely to exhibit efficient reverse intersystem crossing and TADF properties due to their calculated large Δ
EST of 0.76 eV and 0.90 eV. On the contrary,
S-
2 and
S-
4 processed much smaller calculated Δ
EST of 0.34 eV and 0.43 eV and relatively moderate SOC matrix elements of 0.28 cm
−1 and 0.10 cm
−1 between the
1CT and
3LE states, which meant that
S-
2 could manifest faster spin-flip processes and stronger TADF properties than
S-
4 in OLED device applications.