Carbon Dots with Dual‐Emissive, Robust, and Aggregation‐Induced Room‐Temperature Phosphorescence Characteristics

Abstract

Carbon dots (CDs) with dual‐emissive, robust, and aggregation‐induced RTP characteristics are reported for the first time. The TA‐CDs are prepared via hydrothermal treatment of trimellitic acid and exhibit unique white prompt and yellow RTP emissions in solid state under UV excitation (365 nm) on and off, respectively. The yellow RTP emission of TA‐CDs powder should be resulted from the formation of a new excited triplet state due to their aggregation, and the white prompt emission is due to their blue fluorescence and yellow RTP dual‐emissive nature. The RTP emission of TA‐CDs powder was highly stable under grinding, which is very rare amongst traditional pure organic RTP materials. To employ the unique characteristics of TA‐CDs, advanced anti‐counterfeiting and information encryption methodologies (water‐stimuli‐response producing RTP) were preliminarily investigated.

Precursor-dependent structural diversity in luminescent carbonized polymer dots (CPDs): the nomenclature

“…Carbon dots (CDs) are a class of emerging fluorescent materials that exhibit high photostability, excellent photoelectric/optical properties and low toxicity [1][2][3][4][5][6] . They have been widely used to fabricate biomedical appliances 7,8 , optoelectronic devices 9,10 , and sensors 11 and have also been used in the fields of energy conversion 12 , anti-counterfeiting technology [13][14][15] , and catalysis [16][17][18] . CDs are spheroidal carbon nanoparticles horizontally smaller than 10 nm and even shorter vertically 12 .…”

Facile Synthesis of Matrix‐Free Room‐Temperature Phosphorescent Nitrogen‐Doped Carbon Dots and Their Application as Security Inks

“…The long decay lifetimes were indicative of the relevant triplet emission process. [ 29 ] The RTP decay spectra of the N‐CDs at different temperature were also determined (Figure S4, Supporting Information). The phosphorescence lifetimes at these temperatures, calculated from the corresponding decay spectra, were 133.6 ms (77 K), 59.1 (298 K), and 15.1 ms (500 K) demonstrating that the lifetime of the RTP N‐CDs reduced with increasing temperature.…”

Ultra‐strong phosphorescence with 48% quantum yield from grinding treated thermal annealed carbon dots and boric acid composite

“…Carbon dots (CDs) are emerging as a new class of phosphorescence nanomaterials, 11–17 which have attracted significant attention because of their attractive properties, such as simple synthetic routes, low cost, and high photostability. Recently, a principle on manipulating intersystem crossing (ISC) by incorporating heteroatoms into CDs (e.g., N, P, B, and halogens) was proposed to achieve effective RTP 18–23 .…”