Boosting Organic Afterglow Performance via a Two-Component Design Strategy Extracted from Macromolecular Self-Assembly.

Because intersystem crossing and phosphorescence decay are spin-forbidden in organic systems, it is challenging to obtain high-performance organic afterglow materials. Inspired by two-component design strategy from macromolecular self-assembly, here we report the utilization of synthetic polymers to control the excited state properties of difluoroboron β-diketonate (BFbdk) and deuterated BFbdk compounds for the fabrication of room-temperature organic afterglow materials. The polymer component can interact with BFbdk excited states by dipole-dipole interactions, lower BFbdk S levels with insignificant effect on T levels, reduce Δ, and thus enhance intersystem crossing of BFbdk excited states. The polymer component can also suppress intramolecular motion of BFbdk triplets and protect BFbdk triplets from oxygen quenching. The obtained BFbdk-polymer afterglow materials exhibit emission lifetimes up to 2.2 s and high photoluminescence quantum yields under ambient conditions, display excellent processability and flexibility, and can function as efficient donors for excited state energy transfer to construct red afterglow materials.