A dual-emitting inorganic-organic hybrid material with emission intensity enchanced via electron-transfer photochromism

Abstract

A new photochromic inorganic-organic hybrid material [(N-MeIQL)BiCl4] (1, N-MeIQL+ = N-methylisoquinolinium) has been solvothermally synthesized. In 1 the N-MeIQL+ cation is obtained by in situ alkylation of isoquinoline in the acidized methanol solution, and it is firstly reported that N-MeIQL+ acts as an organic template for the design and synthesis of photochromic material. Compound 1 exhibits reversible photochromism between colorless and bright yellow. Moreover, compound 1 displays dual-emitting luminescence and the lifetimes of the two emissions at 410 nm and 640 nm were measured to be 0.71 ns and 0.28 ms, respectively, indicating the fluorescence and phosphorescence characteristics. It is notable that unlike the luminescence quenching of normal photochromic materials in the process of photoinduced coloration, and the emission intensity of 1 can be significantly enhanced via electron-transfer photochromism. The studies of electron-transfer photochromism and photomodulated luminescence provide useful insight into the design of new photoresponsive materials.