No abstract

Scintillators that exhibit X-ray-excited luminescence have great potential in radiation detection, X-ray imaging, radiotherapy, and non-destructive testing. However, most reported scintillators are limited to inorganic or organic crystal materials, which have some obstacles in repeatability and processability. Here we present a facile strategy to achieve the X-ray-excited organic phosphorescent scintillation from amorphous copolymers through the copolymerization of the bromine-substituted chromophores and acrylic acid. These polymeric scintillators exhibit efficient X-ray responsibility and decent phosphorescent quantum yield up to 51.4% under ambient conditions. The universality of the design principle was further confirmed by a series of copolymers with multi-color radioluminescence ranging from green to orange-red. Moreover, we demonstrated their potential application in X-ray radiography. This finding not only outlines a feasible principle to develop X-ray responsive phosphorescent polymers, but also expands the potential applications of polymer materials with phosphorescence features.

X-ray-induced photodynamic therapy utilizes penetrating X-rays to activate reactive oxygen species in deep tissues for cancer treatment, which combines the advantages of photodynamic therapy and radiotherapy. Conventional therapy usually requires heavy-metal-containing inorganic scintillators and organic photosensitizers to generate singlet oxygen. Here, we report a more convenient strategy for X-ray-induced photodynamic therapy based on a class of organic phosphorescence nanoscintillators, that act in a dual capacity as scintillators and photosensitizers. The resulting low dose of 0.4 Gy and negligible adverse effects demonstrate the great potential for the treatment of deep tumours. These findings provide an optional route that leverages the optical properties of purely organic scintillators for deep-tissue photodynamic therapy. Furthermore, these organic nanoscintillators offer an opportunity to expand applications in the fields of biomaterials and nanobiotechnology.

Monodisperse quantum dots (QDs) were prepared by low-temperature process. The remarkable narrow emission peak of the QDs helps the liquid crystal displays (LCD) and electroluminescence displays (QD light-emitting diode, QLED) to generate wide color gamut performance. The range of the color gamut for QD light-converting device (QLCD) is controlled by both the QDs and color filters (CFs) in LCD, and for QLED, the optimized color gamut is dominated by QD materials.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s11671-017-1907-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Intermolecular interactions, including attractive and repulsive interactions, play a vital role in manipulating functionalization of the materials from micro to macro dimensions. Despite great success in generation of ultralong organic phosphorescence (UOP) by suppressing non-radiative transitions through attractive interactions recently, there is still no consideration of repulsive interactions on UOP. Herein, we proposed a feasible approach by introducing carboxyl groups into organic phosphors, enabling formation of the intense repulsive interactions between the isolated molecules and the matrix in rigid environment. Our experimental results show a phosphor with a record lifetime and quantum efficiency up to 3.16 s and 50.0% simultaneously in film under ambient conditions. Considering the multiple functions of the flexible films, the potential applications in anti-counterfeiting, afterglow display and visual frequency indicators were demonstrated. This finding not only outlines a fundamental principle to achieve bright organic phosphorescence in film, but also expands the potential applications of UOP materials.