LAUSR

White light-emitting electrochemical cells (LECs) comprising only [Cu(N^N)(P^P)]+ have not been reported yet, as all the attempts towards blue-emitting complexes failed. Herein, a multivariate analysis based on prior-art [Cu(N^N)(P^P)]+ -based thin-film lighting (>90 papers) and refined with computational calculations identified the best blue-emitting [Cu(N^N)(P^P)]+ design for LECs, that is, N^N: 2-(4-(tert-butyl)phenyl)-6-(3,5-dimethyl-1H-pyrazol-1-yl)pyridine and P^P: 4,5-bis(diphenylphosphino)-9,9-dimethylxanthene, to achieve predicted thin-film emission at 490 nm and device performance of 3.8 cd/A@170 cd/m2 . Validation came from the synthesis, X-ray structure, thin-film spectroscopic/microscopy/electrochemical characterization, and device optimization, realizing the first [Cu(N^N)(P^P)]+ -based blue-LEC with 3.6 cd/A@180 cd/m2 . This represents a record performance compared to the state-of-the-art tri-coordinate Cu(I)-complexes blue-LECs (0.17 cd/A@20 cd/m2 ). Success/versatility were confirmed with the synthesis of the analogous complex with 2-(4-(tert-butyl)phenyl)-6-(3,5-dimethyl-1H-pyrazol-1-yl)pyrazine (N^N), showing a close prediction/experiment match: λ = 590/580 nm; efficiency = 0.55/0.60 cd/A@30 cd/m2 . Finally, an experimental design with a similar multivariate analysis was applied to fabricate the best white multicomponent host:guest LEC, significantly reducing the number of trial-error attempts towards the first white all-[Cu(N^N)(P^P)]+ -LECs with 0.6 cd/A@30 cd/m2 . This corresponds to ca. 10-fold enhancement with regards to previous [Cu(N^N)(P^P)]+ -based white-LECs (<0.05 cd/A@<12 cd/m2 ). Hence, this work sets in the first multivariate approach to design emitters/active layers, accomplishing first-class [Cu(N^N)(P^P)]+ -based blue/white LECs that were still elusive. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.