Tunable Multicolor Lanthanide Supramolecular Assemblies with White Light Emission Confined by Cucurbituril[7]

• Published in: Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) Germany), 2023-11, Vol.19 (46), p.e2304009-e2304009
• Main Authors: Zhou, Wei-Lei, Lin, Wenjing, Chen, Yong, Dai, Xian-Yin, Liu, Yu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Assembly; Confinement; Counterfeiting; Dicarboxylic acids; Encapsulation; Fluorescence; Information storage; Light emission; Logic circuits; Nanotechnology; Quantum dots; Smart materials; Terbium; White light
• ISSN: 1613-6810; 1613-6829
• DOI: 10.1002/smll.202304009

Macrocyclic confinement-induced supramolecular luminescence materials have important application value in the fields of bio-sensing, cell imaging, and information anti-counterfeiting. Herein, a tunable multicolor lanthanide supramolecular assembly with white light emission is reported, which is constructed by co-assembly of cucurbit[7]uril (CB[7]) encapsulating naphthylimidazolium dicarboxylic acid (G )/Ln (Eu /Tb ) complex and carbon quantum dots (CD). Benefiting from the macrocyclic confinement effect of CB[7], the supramolecular assembly not only extends the fluorescence intensity of the lanthanide complex G /Tb by 36 times, but also increases the quantum yield by 28 times and the fluorescence lifetime by 12 times. Furthermore, the CB[7]/G /Ln assembly can further co-assemble with CD and diarylethene derivatives (DAE) to realize the intelligently-regulated full-color spectrum including white light, which results from the competitive encapsulation of adamantylamine and CB[7], the change of pH, and photochromic DAE. The multi-level logic gate based on lanthanide supramolecular assembly is successfully applied in anti-counterfeiting system and information storage, providing an effective method for the research of new luminescent intelligent materials.