Dynamically stable and amplified circularly polarized excimer emission regulated by solvation of chiral co-assembly process

Yuxia Zhang; Hang Li; Zhongxing Geng; Wenhua Zheng; Yiwu Quan; Yixiang Cheng

doi:10.1038/s41467-022-32714-1

Dynamically stable and amplified circularly polarized excimer emission regulated by solvation of chiral co-assembly process

Nat Commun. 2022 Aug 20;13(1):4905. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-32714-1.

Authors

Yuxia Zhang¹, Hang Li¹, Zhongxing Geng^{1

2}, Wenhua Zheng³, Yiwu Quan⁴, Yixiang Cheng⁵

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Organic Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China.
² Key Laboratory of High Performance Polymer Material and Technology of Ministry of Education, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Organic Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China. wzheng@nju.edu.cn.
⁴ Key Laboratory of High Performance Polymer Material and Technology of Ministry of Education, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China. quanyiwu@nju.edu.cn.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Coordination Chemistry, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Organic Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210023, China. yxcheng@nju.edu.cn.

Abstract

Chiral supramolecular assembly has been assigned to be one of the most favorable strategies for the development of excellent circularly polarized luminescent (CPL)-active materials. Herein, we report our study of an achiral boron-containing pyrene (Py)-based chromophore (PyBO) as a circularly polarized excimer emission (CPEE) dye induced by chiral co-assemblies containing chiral binaphthyl-based enantiomers (R/S-M). Chiral co-assembly R/S-M-(PyBO)₄ fresh film spin-coated from toluene solution can exhibit orderly nanofibers and strong green CPEE (λ_em = 512 nm, g_em = ±0.45, Φ_FL = 51.2 %) resulting from an achiral PyBO excimer. In contrast, only a very weak blue CPL was observed (λ_em = 461 nm, g_em = ± 0.0125, Φ_FL = 19.0 %) after 187 h due to PyBO monomer emission as spherulite growth. Interestingly, this kind of chiral co-assembly R-M-(PyBO)₄-T film from tetrahydrofuran (THF) solution retains uniform morphology and affords the most stable and strongest CPEE performance (λ_em = 512 nm, g_em = + 0.62, Φ_FL = 53.3 %) after 10 days.

Abstract

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