Elastic Self-Doping Organic Single Crystals Exhibiting Flexible Optical Waveguide and Amplified Spontaneous Emission

Organic crystals are generally brittle and tend to crack under applied stress. Doped organic crystals are even more brittle because of lattice defects. Herein, the first doped organic crystals 1d@2d, which display elastic bending ability under applied stress, are reported. Moreover, the potential applications of elastic-doped crystals 1d@2d in flexible optoelectronics are impressively demonstrated. The elastic crystals 1d@2d with high quality and large size are crystalized by a simple and unique self-doping process, which is a regular solution evaporation of crude product 1d (2,5-dihydro-3,6-bis(octylamino)terephthalate) containing a minute amount of 2d (3,6-bis(octylamino)terephthalate) as the oxidized byproduct. The host 1d is easily crystallized to form elastic crystals but is nonfluorescent, while the guest 2d has poor crystallinity and is highly emissive. The doping approach integrates the advantages of both 1d and 2d, and thus endows doped crystals 1d@2d with good elasticity as well as intense orange fluorescence. Taking these advantages, the application potentials of these doped crystals 1d@2d are evaluated by measuring optical waveguide and amplified spontaneous emission in both the straight and bent states.