4D Assembly of Time-dependent Lanthanide Supramolecular Multicolor Phosphorescence for Encryption and Visual Sensing

Abstract

Supramolecular dynamic room temperature phosphorescence (RTP) is the focus of current research because of its wide application in biological imaging and information anti-counterfeiting. Herein, a time-dependent supramolecular lanthanide phosphorescent 4D assembly material with multicolor luminescence including white, which is composed of 4-(4-bromophenyl)-pyridine salt derivative (G), inorganic clay (LP)/Eu complex and pyridine dicarboxylic acid (DPA) is reported. Compared with the self-assembled nanoparticle G, the lamellar assembly G/LP showed the double emission of fluorescence at 380 nm and phosphorescence at 516 nm over time. Within 60 min, the phosphorescence lifetime and the quantum yield increases from none to 7.4 ms and 27.53% respectively, achieving the time-dependent phosphorescence emission, due to the limitation of progressive stacking of LP electrostatically driven “domino effect.” Furthermore, the 4D assembly of DPA and G/LP/Eu leads to a time-resolved multicolor emission from colorless to purple to white, which is successfully applied to information multi-level logic anti-counterfeiting and efficiently antibiotic selective sensor.