Multiple Stimuli‐Responsive Luminescent Chiral Hybrid Antimony Chlorides for Anti‐Counterfeiting and Encryption Applications

Abstract Stimuli‐responsive circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) materials are ideal for information anti‐countering applications, but the best‐performing materials have not yet been identified. This work presents enantiomorphic hybrid antimony halides R ‐(C 5 H 12 NO) 2 SbCl 5 ( 1 ) and S ‐(C 5 H 12 NO) 2 SbCl 5 ( 2 ) showing mirror‐imaged CPL activity with a dissymmetry factor of 1.2×10 −3 . Interestingly, the DMF‐induced structural transformation is realized to obtain non‐emissive R ‐(C 5 H 12 NO) 2 SbCl 5 ⋅ DMF ( 3 ) and S ‐(C 5 H 12 NO) 2 SbCl 5 ⋅ DMF ( 4 ) upon exposure to DMF vapor. The transformation process is reversed upon heating. DFT calculations showed that the DMF‐induced‐quenched‐luminescence is attributed to the intersection of the ground and excited state curves on the configuration coordinates. Unexpectedly, the nanocrystals of the chiral antimony halides 1 and 2 were prepared and indicate the excellent solution process performance. The reversible PL and CPL switching gives the system applications in information technology, anti‐counterfeiting, encryption‐decryption, and logic gates.