Circularly polarized luminescence from cholesteric organic-inorganic hybrid silica films

Abstract

Chiroptical functional materials with circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) properties have drawn increasing interest for their potential applications in optoelectronics and chiral sensing. However, the development of CPL materials with both large luminescence dissymmetry (glum) factors and high quantum yields (ΦF) in solid state is still a challenging task. In this work, organic–inorganic hybrid silica films have been prepared by the in-situ polycondensation of a cholesteric liquid-crystalline organosilane with the addition of a chiral dopant and an aggregation-induced emission (AIE)-active tetraphenylethene (TPE) derivative under an acidic condition. The resulting films emit bright CPL with the absolute glum values about 0.15, which were mainly caused by the long-range ordered supramolecular helical structure. It is found that the handedness of the CPL was dominated by the selective reflection of the cholesteric liquid crystal films.