White-light emission and tunable room temperature phosphorescence of dibenzothiophene

Molecular materials exhibiting room temperature phosphorescence (RTP) have received much attention during last few years. It has been known that different stacking fashions (e.g., formation of polymorph) and aggregation/crystal states could largely influence the RTP efficiency. However, whether the crystal morphology or shape could play a key role in modulation of the RTP has not been detected yet. In this work, we report that the dibenzothiophene (DBT) with the same molecular stacking fashion but different crystal morphologies can present alternated RTP performances. By modulation of the fluorescence and phosphorescence dual emission, a direct warm-white color light-emitting has also been successfully achieved. Moreover, the RTP emission can be further tuned through hybridization with β-cyclodextrin in different ratios, with the longest lifetime of 0.43 s.