Syntheses, optical, and electrochemical properties of novel C-9 fluorenyl substituted anthracenes linked by a tetrahedral sp 3-hybridized carbon atom are reported for blue light emitting materials. Remarkably, an unoptimized organic light-emitting diode based on 1-fold fluorene-functionalized anthracene 3 exhibits a radiance of 4100 cd/m2 at 12 V and a maximum EL efficiency of 1.36 cd/A with color purity CIE x, y (0.157, 0.082), which is very ...