Herein, we report the design and synthesis of a new series of flying bird-shaped liquid crystalline (LC) cyanopyridone derivatives with a D–A–D architecture, CPO-1 to CPO-4. Their mesomorphic, photophysical, electrochemical, and electroluminescence characteristics have been investigated in detail. Here, the H-bonding interactions through a central lactam core were shown to be the key driving force for their self-assembly into columnar mesophases. The key role of H-bonding has been confirmed by using newly synthesized similar shaped compounds, MCP-1 to MCP-3. New CPO mesogens were found to be intense greenish blue light emitters with narrow band-gap energies. Conclusions were drawn based on theoretical studies also. Finally, the application potential of the selected mesogen CPO-2 as an emissive material has been demonstrated for the fabrication of doped and non-doped OLED devices with different device architectures, which displayed encouraging results. In fact, this is the first report on the use of emissive H-bond-assisted columnar liquid crystals in devices. The present results provide a new guideline and a versatile approach to the design of new LC molecules for the fabrication of efficient OLEDs.

中文翻译：

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氢键驱动的电致发光D–A–D氰基吡啶酮的柱状自组装体†

本文中，我们报道了具有D–A–D结构的新系列飞鸟形液晶（LC）氰基吡啶酮衍生物的设计和合成，即CPO-1至CPO-4。已经详细研究了它们的介晶，光物理，电化学和电致发光特性。在这里，通过中心内酰胺核的氢键相互作用被证明是它们自组装成柱状中间相的关键驱动力。已经通过使用新合成的类似形状的化合物MCP-1至MCP-3证实了H键的关键作用。新的CPO发现液晶元是具有窄带隙能量的强烈的绿蓝色发光体。结论也是基于理论研究得出的。最后，已证明所选的液晶元CPO-2作为发光材料的应用潜力可用于制造具有不同器件架构的掺杂和非掺杂OLED器件，这显示出令人鼓舞的结果。实际上，这是关于在器件中使用发射H键辅助柱状液晶的第一份报告。目前的结果为设计用于制造高效OLED的新型LC分子提供了新的指南和通用方法。