Synergistic Chirality Transmission and Energy Transfer in Clusteroluminescent Cholesteric Cellulose Derivatives for Amplified Circularly Polarized Luminescence

Cellulose-based systems provide unique advantages for constructing circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) materials owing to their intrinsic chirality and clusteroluminescence properties. However, harnessing the clusteroluminescence of cellulose for the generation, modulation, and amplification of CPL remains challenging. The present work reports the first example of intrinsic CPL from cellulose derivatives by leveraging the synergistic effects of clusteroluminescence and the supramolecular chirality of the chiral nematic (cholesteric) liquid crystalline phase. Notably, the cholesteric cellulose derivatives can simultaneously transfer their inherent chirality and excitation energy to doped achiral fluorescent dyes, leading to amplified multicolor CPL emissions that extend into the near-infrared region. By leveraging the selective reflection of cellulose derivative film, integration with achiral fluorescent and afterglow film enables tunable CPL, as well as circularly polarized afterglow. Moreover, multidimensional information encryption display and chiral logic system are successfully developed. This work offers valuable insights into the synergistic role of chirality and clusteroluminescence in biomacromolecules, and establishes a versatile and generalizable platform for constructing clusteroluminescence-based CPL materials.