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A Universal Strategy for Activating the Multicolor Room‐Temperature Afterglow of Carbon Dots in a Boric Acid Matrix
Author(s) -
Li Wei,
Zhou Wan,
Zhou Zhishan,
Zhang Haoran,
Zhang Xuejie,
Zhuang Jianle,
Liu Yingliang,
Lei Bingfu,
Hu Chaofan
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
angewandte chemie international edition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.831
H-Index - 550
eISSN - 1521-3773
pISSN - 1433-7851
DOI - 10.1002/anie.201814629
Subject(s) - afterglow , heteroatom , phosphorescence , photochemistry , excited state , materials science , boron , quantum dot , singlet state , fluorescence , nanotechnology , chemistry , atomic physics , organic chemistry , physics , optics , ring (chemistry) , gamma ray burst , astronomy
Carbon dots (CDs) have attracted attention in metal‐free afterglow materials, but most CDs were heteroatom‐containing and the afterglow emissions are still limited to the short‐wavelength region. A universal approach to activate the room‐temperature phosphorescence (RTP) of both heteroatom‐free and heteroatom‐containing CDs was developed by one‐step heat treatment of CDs and boric acid (BA). The introduction of an electron‐withdrawing boron atom in composites can greatly reduce the energy gap between the singlet and triplet state; the formed glassy state can effectively protect the excited triplet states of CDs from nonradiative deactivation. A universal host for embedding CDs to achieve long‐lifetime and multi‐color (blue, green, green‐yellow and orange) RTP via a low cost, quick and facile process was developed. Based on their distinctive RTP performances, the applications of these CD‐based RTP materials in information encryption and decryption are also proposed and demonstrated.