2D covalent organic frameworks (COFs) have emerged as a promising class of organic luminescent materials due to their structural diversity, which allows the systematic tuning of organic building blocks to optimize emitting properties. However, a significant knowledge gap exists between the design strategy and the fundamental understanding of the key structural parameters that determine their photophysical properties. In this work, we report two highly emissive sp 2 -C-COFs and the direct correlation of the structure (conjugation and aggregation) with their light absorption/emission, charge transfer (CT), and exciton dynamics, the key properties that determine their function as luminescent materials. We show that white light can be obtained by simply coating COFs on an LED strip or mixing the two COFs. Using the combination of time-resolved absorption and emission spectroscopy as well as computational prediction, we show that the planarity, conjugation, orientation of the dipole moment, and interlayer aggregation not only determine the light-harvesting ability of COFs but also control the exciton relaxation pathway and photoluminescent quantum yield.

Conductive metal organic frameworks (MOFs) represent a promising class of porous crystalline materials that have demonstrated potential in photo-electronics and photocatalytic applications. However, the lack of fundamental understanding on charge transport (CT) mechanism as well as the correlation of CT mechanism with their structure hampered their further development. Herein, we report the direct evidence of CT mechanism in 2D Cu-THQ MOFs and the correlation of temporal and spatial behaviors of charge carriers with their photoconductivity by combining three advanced spectroscopic methods, including time resolved optical and X-ray absorption spectroscopy and terahertz spectroscopy. In addition to Cu-THQ, the CT in Cu/Zn-THQ after incorporating Zn 2+ guest metal was also examined to uncover the contribution of through space pathway, as the presence of the redox inactive 3d 10 Zn 2+ is expected to perturb the long range in-plane CT. We show that the hot carriers in Cu-THQ generated after photoexcitation are highly mobile and undergo fast localization to a lower energy state (cool carriers) with electrons occupying Cu center and holes in ligands. The cool carriers, which have super long lifetime (>17 ns), are responsible for the long-term photoconductivity in Cu-THQ and transport through the O− Cu−O motif with negligible contribution from interlayer ligand π−π stacking, as incorporation of Zn 2+ in Cu-THQ significantly reduced photoconductivity. These unprecedented results not only demonstrate the capability to experimentally probe CT mechanism but also provide important insight in the rational design of 2D MOFs for photoelectronic and photocatalytic applications.

In the past decades, many attempts have been made to mimic the energy transfer (EnT) in photosynthesis, a key process occurring in nature that is of fundamental significance in solar fuels and sustainable energy. Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs), an emerging class of porous crystalline materials self-assembled from organic linkers and metal or metal cluster nodes, offer an ideal platform for the exploration of directional EnT phenomena. However, placing energy donor and acceptor moieties within the same framework with an atomistic precision appears to be a major synthesis challenge. In this work, we report the design and synthesis of a highly porous and photoactive N,N′-bicarbazole- and porphyrin-based mixed-ligand MOF, namely, NPF-500-H2TCPP (NPF = Nebraska porous framework; H2TCPP = meso-tetrakis­(4-carboxyphenyl)­porphyrin), where the secondary ligand H2TCPP is incorporated precisely through the open metal sites of the equatorial plane of the octahedron cage resulting from the underlying (4,8) connected network of NPF-500. The efficient EnT process from N,N′-bicarbazole to porphyrin in NPF-500-H2TCPP was captured by time-resolved spectroscopy and exemplified by photocatalytic oxidation of thioanisole. These results demonstrate not only the capability of NPF-500 as the scaffold to precisely arrange the donor–acceptor assembly for the EnT process but also the potential to directly utilize the EnT process for photocatalytic applications.

Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) have emerged as promising photocatalytic materials for solar energy conversion. However, the fundamental understanding of light harvesting and charge separation (CS) dynamics in MOFs remain underexplored,...