•A novel high efficient ultra violet emission type material SF-DPSO was successfully synthesized.•The steric and bulky compound SF-DPSO exhibits an excellent solid state photoluminescence quantum yield (ΦPL = 92%).•The new small molecular material functions not only as a good UV-violet emitter, but also as an efficient host material.A high efficient UV–violet emission type material bis[4-(9,9′-spirobifluorene-2-yl)phenyl] sulfone (SF-DPSO) has been synthesized by incorporating electron deficient sulfone and morphologically stable spirobifluorene into one molecule. The steric and bulky compound SF-DPSO exhibits an excellent solid state photoluminescence quantum yield (ΦPL = 92%), high glass transition temperature (Tg = 211 °C) and high triplet energy (ET = 2.85 eV). In addition, the uniform amorphous thin film could be formed by spin-coating from its solution. These promising physical properties of the material made it suitable for using as UV–violet emitter in non-doped device and appropriate host in phosphorescent OLEDs. With SF-DPSO as an emitter, the non-doped solution processed device achieved an efficient UV–violet emission with the EL peak around 400 nm. By using SF-DPSO as a host, solution processed blue and green phosphorescent organic light emitting diodes showed a high luminous efficiency of 13.7 and 30.2 cd A−1, respectively.Graphical abstractA novel sulfone-based solution processable material with excellent solid state photoluminescence quantum yield, high thermal and morphological stability and high triplet energy can serve not only as efficient emitter for UV–violet electrofluorescence, but also as appropriate host for blue and green phosphorescent organic light-emitting devices.