Self-confining isolated chiral chromophore for circularly polarized organic afterglow from amorphous polymer systems

Abstract

Circularly polarized organic afterglow (CPOA) materials showing ultralong lifetime and chiral emission features have received widespread attention. However, generating CPOA emission remains a formidable challenge primarily due to the synergetic suppression non-radiative decay and chirality incorporation of triplet excitons. Herein, we propose a strategy to enable CPOA by covalently self-confining isolated chiral chromophores into the polymer matrix with rigidity and strong intermolecular interactions to effectively inhibit the non-radiative decay of chiral triplet excitons. The CPOA polymers exhibiting dual fluorescence and afterglow emission with a maximum luminescence dissymmetry factor of 1.06 × 10-2 and ultralong lifetime of up to 1.08 s have been achieved by crosslinking binaphthol derivatives into rigid self-host of polyacrylamide. Leveraging the superiority of afterglow and chiral attributes of CPOA polymers, advanced display and encryption demonstrations have been fabricated. This work underscores the significance of confining isolated chiral chromophores for the development of circularly polarized luminescent materials.