Activating room-temperature phosphorescence of organic luminophores via external heavy-atom effect and rigidity of ionic polymer matrix

Pure organic room-temperature phosphorescence (RTP) materials have attracted wide attention for their easy preparation, low toxicity, and applications in various fields like bioimaging and anti-counterfeiting. Developing phosphorescent systems with more universality and less difficulty in synthesis has long been the pursuit of materials scientists. By employing polymeric quaternary ammonium salt with an ionic bonding matrix and heavy atoms, commercial fluorescent dyes are directly endowed with phosphorescence emission. In a single amorphous polymer, the external heavy-atom effect generates excited triplet states and the rigid polymer matrix stabilizes them. This study not only put forward a new general strategy to design and develop pure organic RTP materials starting from existing library of organic dyes without complicated chemical synthesis, but also provided a powerful tool for studying excited triplet states.