Abstract
Revealing the photoluminescence (PL) origin and mechanism is a most vital but challenging topic of carbon dots. Herein, confined-domain crosslink-enhanced emission (CEE) effect was first studied by a well-designed model system of carbonized polymer dots (CPDs), serving as an important supplement to CEE in the aspect of spatial interactions. The “addition-condensation polymerization” strategy was adopted to construct CPDs with substituents exerting different degrees of steric hindrance. The effect of confined-domain CEE on the structure and luminescence properties of CPDs have been systematically investigated by combining characterizations and theoretical calculations. Such tunable spatial interactions dominated the coupling strength of the luminophores in one particle, and eventually resulted in the modulated PL properties of CPDs. These findings provide insights into the structural advantages and the PL mechanism of CPDs, which are of general significance to the further development of CPDs with tailored properties.
Highlights
Carbon dots (CDs) exhibit tremendous superiority in facile fabrication and luminescence performance[1–4]
Construction for a model system of carbonized polymer dots (CPDs) Selecting a representative and appropriate model system is most important for the study of the confined-domain crosslink-enhanced emission (CEE) in CPDs while considering the following points[17]: (1) Structural primitives are required for the formation of CPDs
Amino and carboxyl groups are the most common groups used for the development of CPDs. (2) Tunable spatial interactions must be present inside one particle
Summary
Carbon dots (CDs) exhibit tremendous superiority in facile fabrication and luminescence performance[1–4]. These novel nanomaterials have realized widespread applications in optoelectronic devices, biomedicine, photocatalysis, etc[5–7]. The ultimate purpose of investigations on CDs is to recognize the essence of these materials and achieve the targeted synthesis. It’s a tough task to modulate the properties of CDs, since the PL mechanism is still controversial[8–12]. Inspired by the mature theories of quantum dots[13–15], graphene[16,17], and organic molecules[18,19], some speculations have emerged about the photoluminescence (PL) mechanisms of CDs, including carbon-core states, surface/edge states, and molecule states.
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