Hydrogen bonding-induced oxygen clusters and long-lived room temperature phosphorescence from amorphous polyols

摘要

Developing non-conjugated luminescent polymers(NCLPs)with fluorescence and long-lived roomtemperature phosphorescence is of great significance for revealing the essence of NCLPs luminescence,which has gradually attracted the attention of researchers in recent years.Herein,polymethylol(PMO)and poly(3-butene-1,2-diol)(PBD)with polyhydroxy structures were prepared and their luminescence behaviors were investigated to reveal the clusteroluminescence(CL)mechanism.Compared with polyvinyl alcohol with non-luminescent behavior,PMO and PBD exhibit cyan-blue fluorescence with quantum yields of ca.12%and green room-temperature phosphorescence with lifetimes of ca.89 ms in the solid state.Both fluorescence and phosphorescence exhibit typical excitation-dependent CL behavior.Experimental and theoretical analyses show that the strong hydrogen-bonding interaction of PMO and PBD greatly promotes the formation of oxygen clusters and the through-space n-n interaction of oxygen atoms,enabling fluorescence and phosphorescence emission.Our results have enormous implications for understanding the CL mechanism of NCLPs and provide a new polymer design strategy for the rational design of novel NCLPs materials.