Mononuclear aggregation-induced emission (AIE)-active gold(I)-isocyanide phosphors: Contrasting phosphorescent mechanochromisms and effect of halogen substitutions on room-temperature phosphorescence nature

Developing phosphors with long-lifetime (millisecond scale or even longer) solid state room temperature phosphorescence (RTP) feature has attracted considerable attention. However, to date, stimuli-responsive phosphors with RTP nature are still rare due to the absence of effective guidelines for the exploitation of luminophors synchronously possessing stimuli-responsive and RTP characteristics. In this work, a series of mononuclear gold(I) complexes are reported. All these complexes exhibit various solid-state RTP properties, and phosphor 1-Cl exhibits long-lived RTP behavior. The effect of halogen atoms on the RTP nature of these complexes is investigated in detail. Furthermore, the introduction of different types of halogen atoms can effectively regulate the phosphorescent mechanochromism phenomena of these gold(I)-containing complexes. In addition, these phosphors display typical aggregation-induced emission (AIE) effect except for phosphor 5-CCl, which lacks hydrogen-bonding interactions compared with the other four phosphors. This work will be very helpful to the development of mechanical-force-responsive AIE phosphors with lasting RTP. (C) 2022 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Chinese Chemical Society and Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.

Automated summary

This study reports a series of mononuclear gold(I) complexes with solid-state RTP properties and investigates the effect of halogen atoms on their RTP nature. Additionally, these complexes exhibit phosphorescent mechanochromism phenomena and aggregation-induced emission (AIE) effect.