Se/S enhanced room-temperature phosphorescence of organic polymers

Room-temperature phosphorescence (RTP) materials have drawn widespread attention due to its unique property and extensive application, which makes finding effective ways to improve luminescence performance of RTP materials an urgent thing. We have prepared a series of polymers containing S/Se-naphthalimide derivatives that not only showed decent RTP properties in solid state, but also achieved RTP in aqueous solution. The heavy-atom effect of Se and hetero-atom effect of S can facilitate the spin-forbidden transfer of singlet-to-triplet excited states through intersystem crossing to populate triplet state thereby enhancing the RTP. The hydrogen-bonded crosslinking network of polymer systems endow the phosphorescence the good oxygen barrier property in both solid and aqueous states. This RTP-enhancing concept can lay a good foundation for the subsequent development of RTP materials with better performance.