Mononuclear aggregation-induced emission (AIE)-active gold(I)-isocyanide phosphors: Contrasting phosphorescent mechanochromisms and effect of halogen substitutions on room-temperature phosphorescence nature

Abstract

Developing phosphors with long-lifetime (millisecond scale or even longer) solid state room temperature phosphorescence (RTP) feature has attracted considerable attention. However, to date, stimuli-responsive phosphors with RTP nature are still rare due to the absence of effective guidelines for the exploitation of luminophors synchronously possessing stimuli-responsive and RTP characteristics. In this work, a series of mononuclear gold(I) complexes are reported. All these complexes exhibit various solid-state RTP properties, and phosphor 1-Cl exhibits long-lived RTP behavior. The effect of halogen atoms on the RTP nature of these complexes is investigated in detail. Furthermore, the introduction of different types of halogen atoms can effectively regulate the phosphorescent mechanochromism phenomena of these gold(I)-containing complexes. In addition, these phosphors display typical aggregation-induced emission (AIE) effect except for phosphor 5-CCl, which lacks hydrogen-bonding interactions compared with the other four phosphors. This work will be very helpful to the development of mechanical-force-responsive AIE phosphors with lasting RTP.