Volume 196, 2017

All-or-none switching of photon upconversion in self-assembled organogel systems

Abstract

Aggregation-induced photon upconversion (iPUC) based on a triplet–triplet annihilation (TTA) process is successfully developed via controlled self-assembly of donor–acceptor pairs in organogel nanoassemblies. Although segregation of donor from acceptor assemblies has been an outstanding problem in TTA-based UC and iPUC, we resolved this issue by modifying both the triplet donor and aggregation induced emission (AIE)-type acceptor with glutamate-based self-assembling moieties. These donors and acceptors co-assemble to form organogels without segregation. Interestingly, these donor–acceptor binary gels show upconversion at room temperature but the upconversion phenomena were lost upon dissolution of the gels on heating. The observed changes in TTA-UC emission were thermally reversible, reflecting the controlled assembly/disassembly of the binary molecular systems. The observed on/off ratio of UC emission was much higher than that of the aggregation-induced fluorescence of the acceptor, which highlights the important role of iPUC, i.e., multi-exciton TTA for photoluminescence switching. This work bridges iPUC and supramolecular chemistry and provides a new strategy for designing stimuli-responsive upconversion systems.

Associated articles

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
11 ก.ค. 2559
Accepted
18 ก.ค. 2559
First published
18 ก.ค. 2559

Faraday Discuss., 2017,196, 305-316

All-or-none switching of photon upconversion in self-assembled organogel systems

P. Duan, D. Asthana, T. Nakashima, T. Kawai, N. Yanai and N. Kimizuka, Faraday Discuss., 2017, 196, 305 DOI: 10.1039/C6FD00170J

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements