Cascade Synthesis of Luminescent Difluoroboron Diketonate Compounds for Room-Temperature Organic Afterglow Materials

Comprehensive Summary Difluoroboron beta-diketonate (BF(2)bdk) compounds represent an important class of luminescent materials, whereas their synthesis requires multiple steps, which restrict their application in diverse fields. Here we report a cascade reaction to prepare BF(2)bdk from aromatic ketones, carboxylic acids, trifluoroacetic anhydride and boron trifluoride diethyl etherate. The cascade reaction is very simple and straightforward to produce BF(2)bdk with desired functional groups in reasonable isolation yields. Further, when some specific BF(2)bdk compounds are used as luminescent dopants, organic room-temperature phosphorescence with lifetimes >1.0 s and intense afterglow under ambient conditions can be achieved with the assistance by suitable organic matrices. The dopant-matrix materials exhibit excellent processability into desired patterns and large-area panels, and function as efficient donors of excited state energy transfer for the fabrication of red afterglow materials. The materials can be processed into aqueous afterglow dispersion that displays unique property of escaping the interference from strong fluorescence background.

Automated summary

In this study, a simple and straightforward cascade reaction was reported to synthesize BF(2)bdk compounds with different functional groups. With the assistance of suitable organic matrices, these compounds can exhibit organic room-temperature phosphorescence with long lifetimes and intense afterglow, showing excellent performance in the fabrication of processable red afterglow materials.