## 1 Introduction  
Since the first report of [PERSON] and [PERSON] in 1987 [1], organic electroluminescent (EL) devices have been receiving much scientific and commercial attention because of their latent capabilities, such as full-color displays, excellent brightness, fast response time, low turn-on voltage, wide viewing angle, and flexible light source [2]. Extremely pure red, green, and blue luminophores with high electrochemical stability and efficiency are particularly essential for a vivid full-color display in organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). To date, OLED materials for red and green emission with high performance have been developed [3; 4; 5; 6; 7; 8; 9; 10; 11]. However, continuous efforts to enhance stability and efficiency in blue fluorescent materials, which possess relatively low chemical and electrochemical properties, caused by the intrinsic wide band-gap, are still required [12; 13].  
As a notable candidate for effective blue-emitting materials, anthracene derivatives have attracted much attention in OLEDs because of their excellent optical and electroluminescent properties [14; 15; 16; 17; 18; 19; 20; 21; 22; 23; 24; 25; 26; 27; 28]. However, these organic fluorescent \(\pi\)-conjugated compounds pose small problems, such as poor thermal stability and device failure caused by intermolecular \(\pi\)-stacking features. Novel silicon-cored (triphenylsilane) [29; 30] or asymmetric anthracene derivatives [31; 32; 33] containing bulky aryl substituents at the 9,10-position that exhibit high thermal stability and good EL properties as blue host materials have recently been investigated. Furthermore, 9,10-diarylanthracene (DAA) compounds containing aryl groups such as spirobifluorene [34] and carbazole [35; 36] moieties are advantageous in terms of preventing close packing of the molecular structure, thereby achieving high quantum efficiency and EL properties. Along with the foregoing studies, DAA derivatives bearing various substituents at the C-2 position of anthracene moieties have also been recently investigated [37; 38].  
In an effort to extend such concepts, we were interested in the DAA compounds with trifluoromethyl units at the C-2 position of the anthracene core. The trifluoromethyl group, in particular, can give rise to enhancing electron mobility, thereby improving the balance of charge injection and transfer [39]. In addition, the introduction of a bulky 3-(trifluoromethylomethyl)phenyl) unit into the anthracene core can efficiently prevent the intermolecular aggregations and reduce self-quenching behaviors. Although several fluorinated DAA derivatives at the 9,10-position of the anthracene groups as noticeable blue host materials have been reported [40; 41], the example of 2-fluorinated DAA compounds has never been studied.  
From this perspective, we have systematically designed and synthesized a series of DAA derivatives (i.e., 9,10-diphenyl-2-(3-(trifluoromethylomethyl)phenyl)anthracene (**1**), 9,10-di([1,1\({}^{\prime}\)-biphenyl]-4-yl)-2-(3-(trifluoromethylphenyl)phenyl)anthracene (**2**), and 9,10-di(naphthalene-2-yl)-2-(3-(trifluoromethylomethyl)phenyl)anthracene (**3**)) bearing fluorinated end-capping groups at the C-2 position of the anthracene core to investigate their thermal/electrochemical stabilities and electronic performances. The synthesis, characterization, and luminescence properties of the newly prepared DAA compounds (**1-3**), along with their application as the blue host materials for OLEDs, are presented in detail herein.