Wide range zero-thermal-quenching ultralong phosphorescence from zero-dimensional metal halide hybrids

Materials with ultralong phosphorescence have wide-ranging application prospects in biological imaging, light-emitting devices, and anti-counterfeiting. Usually, molecular phosphorescence is significantly quenched with increasing temperature, rendering it difficult to achieve high-efficiency and ultralong room temperature phosphorescence. Herein, we spearhead this challenging effort to design thermal-quenching resistant phosphorescent materials based on an effective intermediate energy buffer and energy transfer route. Co-crystallized assembly of zero-dimensional metal halide organic-inorganic hybrids enables ultralong room temperature phosphorescence of (Ph4P)(2)Cd2Br6 that maintains luminescent stability across a wide temperature range from 100 to 320K (Delta T=220 degrees C) with the room temperature phosphorescence quantum yield of 62.79% and lifetime of 37.85ms, which exceeds those of other state-of-the-art systems. Therefore, this work not only describes a design for thermal-quenching-resistant luminescent materials with high efficiency, but also demonstrates an effective way to obtain intelligent systems with long-lasting room temperature phosphorescence for optical storage and logic compilation applications. Molecular luminescence is generally significantly quenched at high temperature. Here the authors report a zero-dimensional metal halide hybrid that exhibits zero-thermal-quenching ultralong phosphorescence over a wide temperature range of 220K, and demonstrate use for Morse code encryption and logic gates.