Tetraphenylethylene-Based Multicomponent Emissive Metallacages as Solid-State Fluorescent Materials

The construction of solid-state fluorescent materials with high quantum yield and good processability is of vital importance in the preparation of organic light-emitting devices. Herein, a series of tetraphenylethylene (TPE)-based multicomponent emissive metallacages are prepared by the coordination-driven self-assembly of tetra-(4-pyridylphenyl)ethylene, cis-Pt(PEt3)(2)(OTf)(2) and tetracarboxylic ligands. These metallacages exhibit good emission both in solution and in the solid state because the coordination bonds and aggregation restrict the molecular motions of TPE synergistically, which suppresses the non-radiative decay of these metallacages. Impressively, one of the metallacages achieves very high fluorescence quantum yield (phi(F)=88.46 %) in the solid state, which is further used as the coatings of a blue LED bulb to achieve white-light emission. The study not only provides a general method to the preparation of TPE-based metallacages but also explores their applications as solid-state fluorescent materials, which will promote the future design and applications of metallacages as useful emissive devices.

Automated summary

By using multi-component emissive metallacages as solid-state fluorescent materials, high quantum yield emission performance was achieved by restricting molecular motions and suppressing non-radiative decay. One of the metallacages exhibited very high fluorescence quantum yield in the solid state and was successfully applied as a coating for white-light emission in a blue LED bulb.