Low-cost,
stable, highly sensitive, and easy-to-equip fluorescent
high-pressure sensors are always attractive in both industrial and
scientific communities. Organic emitting materials with pressure-dependent
bathochromisms usually exhibit prominent mechanoluminescence, due
to disturbance of intermolecular packing. This hinders their applications
in stable and robust pressure sensing. In this work, we have developed
a mechanically stable organic molecular pressure sensor, caused by
intramolecular consecutive rotations by pressure, which exhibit large
and eye-detectable emission bathochromism from yellow-green to red
fluorescence and can be used for 0–15 GPa pressure sensing.
The emission bathochromism shows good linear relationship with pressure,
exhibiting a high linear coefficient of 9.1 nm/GPa. Moreover, this
molecular sensor exhibits high thermal and mechanical stabilities,
indicating good potentials for robust and outdoor applications.