Wide-Color-Tunable Afterglow Materials from Blue to Deep Red via Boric Acid Assisted Molecular Doping

The construction of afterglow materials with full-color tunable emissions is attractive but still a challenging task. Herein, a host-guest doping strategy was proposed to produce afterglow materials with an emission-color span of almost 210 nm (from blue to deep red) by heat treating the aqueous mixture of arylboronic acids and boric acid (BA). In-depth structural, photophysical, and theoretical studies revealed that the heat treatment process resulted in the dehydration of BA and the formation of a glassy state host, and arylboronic acids were loaded as guest molecules through H-bonds and covalent bonds with BA. The afterglow originated from arylboronic acids, and the afterglow color of products was related to their degree of conjugation of aromatic groups. The host-guest doping strategy significantly improved the photophysical performances of arylboronic acids, achieving a photoluminescence quantum yield as high as 81.7% and an emission lifetime of 2.90 s (afterglow >22 s). Triple information encryption based on emission lifetime and color-encoding was also achieved, demonstrating their commercial potential for use in anticounterfeiting and information storage.