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- Title
Photochromic luminescence of organic crystals arising from subtle molecular rearrangement.
- Authors
Zhao, Zihao; Cai, Yusong; Zhang, Qiang; Li, Anze; Zhu, Tianwen; Chen, Xiaohong; Yuan, Wang Zhang
- Abstract
Photoluminescence (PL) colour-changing materials in response to photostimulus play an increasingly significant role in intelligent applications for their programmability. Nevertheless, current research mainly focuses on photochemical processes, with less attention to PL transformation through uniform aggregation mode adjustment. Here we show photochromic luminescence in organic crystals (e.g. dimethyl terephthalate) with PL varying from dark blue to purple, then to bright orange-red, and finally to red. This change is attributed to the emergence of clusters with red emission, which is barely achieved in single-benzene-based structures, thanks to the subtle molecular rearrangements prompted by light. Crucial to this process are the through-space electron interactions among molecules and moderate short contacts between ester groups. The irradiated crystals exhibit reversible PL transformation upon sufficient relaxation, showing promising applications in information storage and smart optoelectronic devices. This research contributes to the development of smart photochromic luminescent materials with significant PL colour transformations through molecular rearrangement. Color-changing emissions in organic crystals are often realized via photochemical reactions of their molecules. Here, the authors demonstrate reversible color change through more simple molecular rearrangements with application in encryption and data storage.
- Subjects
REARRANGEMENTS (Chemistry); PHOTOCHROMIC materials; LUMINESCENCE; DATA encryption; CRYSTALS; OPTOELECTRONIC devices; DIARYLETHENE; FUSED silica
- Publication
Nature Communications, 2024, Vol 15, Issue 1, p1
- ISSN
2041-1723
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1038/s41467-024-48728-w