New Wine in Old Bottles: Prolonging Room-Temperature Phosphorescence of Crown Ethers by Supramolecular Interactions

Peifa Wei; Xuepeng Zhang; Junkai Liu; Guo-Gang Shan; Haoke Zhang; Ji Qi; Weijun Zhao; Herman H-Y Sung; Ian D Williams; Jacky W Y Lam; Ben Zhong Tang

doi:10.1002/anie.201912155

New Wine in Old Bottles: Prolonging Room-Temperature Phosphorescence of Crown Ethers by Supramolecular Interactions

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2020 Jun 8;59(24):9293-9298. doi: 10.1002/anie.201912155. Epub 2019 Nov 20.

Authors

Peifa Wei^{1

2

3}, Xuepeng Zhang¹, Junkai Liu¹, Guo-Gang Shan⁴, Haoke Zhang¹, Ji Qi¹, Weijun Zhao¹, Herman H-Y Sung¹, Ian D Williams¹, Jacky W Y Lam¹, Ben Zhong Tang^{1

3

5}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, The Hong Kong Branch of Chinese National Engineering Research Center for Tissue Restoration and Reconstruction, Institute for Advanced Study, and Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China.
² Institutes of Physical Science and Information Technology, Anhui University, Hefei, 230601, China.
³ HKUST-Shenzhen Research Institute, No. 9 Yuexing 1st RD, South Area, Hi-tech Park, Nanshan, Shenzhen, 518057, China.
⁴ Institute of Functional Material Chemistry, Faculty of Chemistry, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, 130024, China.
⁵ Center for Aggregation-Induced Emission, SCUT-HKUST Joint Research Institute, State Key Laboratory of Luminescent Materials and Devices, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640, China.

PMID: 31621154
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201912155

Abstract

Supramolecular macrocyclic hosts have long been used in smart materials. However, their triplet emission and regulation at crystal level is rarely studied. Herein, ultralong and universal room-temperature phosphorescence (RTP) is reported for traditional crown ethers. A supramolecular strategy involving chain length adjustment and morphological locking through complexation with K⁺ was explored as a general method to tune the phosphorescence lifetime in the solid state. A maximum 10-fold increase of lifetime after complex formation accompanied with by invisible to visible phosphorescence was achieved. A deep encryption based on this activated RTP strategy was also facilely fabricated. This work thus opens a new world for supramolecular macrocycles and their intrinsic guest responsiveness offers a new avenue for versatile smart luminescent materials.

Keywords: crown ethers; host-guest chemistry; macrocycle; room-temperature phosphorescence; supramolecular interaction.

Abstract

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