Large-Area, Flexible, Transparent, and Long-Lived Polymer-Based Phosphorescence Films

Polymer-based room-temperature phosphorescence (RTP) materials with high flexibility and large-area producibility are highly promising for applications in organic electronics. However, achieving such photophysical materials is challenging because of difficulties in populating and stabilizing susceptible triplet excited states at room temperature. Herein large-area, flexible, transparent, and long-lived RTP systems prepared by doping rationally selected organic chromophores in a poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) matrix were realized through a hydrogen-bonding and coassembly strategy. In particular, the 3,6-diphenyl-9<i>H</i>-carbazole (DPCz)-doped PVA film shows long-lived phosphorescence emission (up to 2044.86 ms) and a remarkable duration of afterglow (over 20 s) under ambient conditions. Meanwhile, the 7<i>H</i>-dibenzo[<i>c</i>,<i>g</i>]carbazole (DBCz)-doped PVA film exhibits high absolute luminance of 158.4 mcd m² after the ultraviolet excitation source is removed. The RTP results not only from suppressing the nonradiative decay by abundant hydrogen-bonding interactions in the PVA matrix but also from minimizing the energy gap (Δ<i>E</i>_ST) between the singlet state and the triplet state through the coassembly effect. On account of the outstanding mechanical properties and the afterglow performance of these RTP materials, they were applied in the fabrication of flexible 3D objects with repeatable folding and curling properties. Importantly, the multichannel afterglow light-emitting diode arrays were established under ambient conditions. The present long-lived phosphorescent systems demonstrate a bright opportunity for the production of large-area, flexible, and transparent emitting materials.