Amorphous Metal-Free Room-Temperature Phosphorescent Small Molecules with Multicolor Photoluminescence via a Host–Guest and Dual-Emission Strategy

Metal-free room-temperature phosphorescence (RTP) materials offer unprecedented potentials for photoelectric and biochemical materials due to their unique advantages of long lifetime and low toxicity. However, the achievements of phosphorescence at ambient condition so far have been mainly focused on ordered crystal lattice or on embedding into rigid matrices, where the preparation process might bring out poor repeatability and limited application. In this research, a series of amorphous organic small molecular compounds were developed with efficient RTP emission through conveniently modifying phosphor moieties to β-cyclodextrin (β-CD). The hydrogen bonding between the cyclodextrin derivatives immobilizes the phosphors to suppress the nonradiative relaxation and shields phosphors from quenchers, which enables such molecules to emit efficient RTP emission with decent quantum yields. Furthermore, one such cyclodextrin derivative was utilized to construct a host–guest system incorporating a fluorescent guest...