Reversible Guest‐Induced Long‐Lasting Luminescence

Materials showing long-lasting luminescence (LLLum) are receiving increasing attention during the last few years owing to their potential use in many areas such as chemical sensing. This chapter focuses on the most significant developments made in the design and study of solid compounds exhibiting not only LLLum but also a stimuli-responsive behavior arising from the interaction with either an analyte or an external magnitude affecting the material. These materials have been classified into four main groups: inorganic, purely organic, polymeric, and metal–organic materials, while the most recent hybrids and composites derived from their mixture are also considered meanwhile. In addition to exploring the strategies that improve the luminescence lifetimes and efficiencies, a particular effort is done to comprehensively explain the advantages of the sensing performed on those materials showing changes in the LLLum signal compared to fluorescence.