Achieving Tunable Organic Afterglow and UV Irradiation-Responsive Ultralong Room-Temperature Phosphorescence from Pyridine-Substituted Triphenylamine Derivatives.

Abstract

Amorphous polymers with ultralong room-temperature phosphorescence (RTP) are highly promising for various applications. Particularly, polymer-based RTP materials with multiple functions such as color-tunability or stimulus-responsiveness are highly desirable for multilevel anti-counterfeiting but are rarely reported. Herein, we present a facile strategy to achieve a series of polymer-based RTP materials with ultralong lifetime, multicolor afterglow, and reversible response to UV irradiation by simply embedding pyridine-substituted triphenylamine derivatives into the polymer matrix poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), respectively. Notably, the pyridine group with the capabilities of promoting intersystem crossing and forming hydrogen-bonding interactions is essential for triggering ultralong RTP from the doping PVA system, among which the doping film TPA-2Py@PVA exhibits excellent RTP property with an ultralong lifetime of 798.4ms and a high quantum yield of 15.2%. By further co-doping with the commercially available fluorescent dye, multicolor afterglow is obtained via phosphorescence energy transfer. While the doping PMMA system exhibits reversible photo-activated ultralong RTP properties under continuous UV irradiation. Finally, we demonstrate potential applications of these doping PVA and PMMA systems with ultralong lifetime, multicolor afterglow, and photo-activated ultralong RTP in multi-dimensional anti-counterfeiting. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.