Thermally activated processes in an organic long-persistent luminescence system.

Glow-in-the-dark materials can store absorbed photon energy and emit light for long periods of time. While inorganic long-persistent luminescence (LPL) materials are crystalline and often require rare metals, organic LPL (OLPL) materials are flexible and require no rare metals. The emission process of OLPL systems consists of photoinduced charge separation, charge accumulation, and emission from charge recombination. Although emission processes of OLPL systems have been investigated, the charge separation and accumulation processes remain enigmatic. In this study, we investigated the charge carrier dynamics of a binary OLPL system comprising of electron donors and acceptors. We confirmed the presence of thermal activation processes, thermally activated delayed fluorescence and thermoluminescence in the OLPL system.