A facile co-crystallization approach to fabricate two-component carbon dot composites showing time-dependent evolutive room temperature phosphorescence colors

Time-dependent evolutive afterglow materials can increase the security level by providing additional encryption modes in anti-counterfeiting and data encryption. The design of carbon-based materials with dynamic afterglow colors is attractive but formidably challenging. In this study, a facile two-component co-crystallization strategy is designed for the first time to obtain N,S-co-doped carbon dots@isophthalic acid (CDs@IPA) and N,S-co-doped carbon dots@melamine (CDs@MA). CDs@IPA and CDs@MA all exhibiting time-dependent evolutive RTP colors from orange