Phenanthroimidazole-based gels for information encryption via synergistic acidichromism and light harvesting

Abstract

To address the limitations of traditional information encryption materials, we combined the synthesized phenanthroimidazole derivative YF with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) to prepare PYFS (acid-induced white-light gel) and PYFF (light-harvesting whitelight gel). The encryption system comprising these two gels is colorless under natural light: both gels emit white light under 365 nm light, while PYFF emits orange light under 540 nm light (PYFS does not), enabling encrypted information display and thereby providing a new anti-counterfeiting and encryption approach.