In this work, two star-shaped small conjugated materials, namely tris(4-(1-phenyl-1H-phenanthro[9,10-d]imidazol-2-yl)phenyl) amine (PIPTPA) and tris(4-(1-p-tolyl-1H-phenanthro[9,10-d]imidazol-2-yl)phenyl)amine (PITTPA) with donor-π-acceptor (D-π-A) structures, were designed and synthesized by combining three phenanthroimidazole arms into an triphenylamine core. A detailed photophysical, thermal, electrochemical and related properties were systematically studied. Furthermore, theoretical calculations (DFT and TD-DFT) were performed to get a better understanding of the electronic structures. Both the materials were found to exhibit high glass transition temperatures (~ 238 °C) and high thermal stabilities with decomposition temperatures up to 298 °C. OLEDs using these materials as emissive materials showed excellent device performance (7.42 cd A−1, 5.77 lm W−1, 4.14% at 100 cd m−2) with green emission and low turn-on voltages. The results demonstrate that TPA integrated with phenthroimdazole plays an important role in the device performance. © 2017 Elsevier B.V.