Single Molecular Persistent Room-Temperature Phosphorescence and Circularly Polarized Luminescence from Binaphthol-Decorated Optically Innocent Cyclotriphosphazenes

Circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) features of BINOL-decorated cyclotriphosphazenes (CPs) are reported for the first time. The luminescence dissymmetry factor (glum) of these compounds in chloroform solutions and polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) thin films with wt 1% doping concentrations are found to be 1.0x10(-3), and 2.9x10(-3), respectively. However, no CPL signal is observed for the pristine solids. The enantiomers (CP-(R)/CP-(S)) show ultraviolet photoluminescence (similar to 350-360 nm) in solution and the solid state. These compounds show similar to 10 times larger absolute photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) than the simple BINOLs in the solutions state. In the solid state, CP-(R) shows larger PLQY than binaphthol-(R); in contrast, the S enantiomer shows lower PLQY than binaphthol(S); this indicates that the isomer-dependent solid-state packing of these compounds plays a crucial role in controlling the PL. Thin films with more than 1% doping concentration and pristine solids of these compounds do not show persistent room-temperature phosphorescence (pRTP) due to concentration-caused quenching. However, thin films with wt 1% of these chiral emitters exhibit pRTP characteristics with a similar to 159-343 ms lifetime under vacuum. Theoretical calculations reveal that the cyclophosphazene acts as an optically innocent dendritic core, and the optical features of these compounds are dictated by the pendent BINOL chromophore.