An information carrier based on turn-on type mechanochromic luminescent material: Application for rewritable binary data storage

Abstract We report a turn-on type mechanochromic luminescent (MCL) material in this work. The molecular design, including the electron donor-acceptor (D-A) pairs and single-bond rotation, endows the material with both intramolecular charge transfer (ICT) and aggregation-enhanced emission (AEE) nature. It shows remarkable emission enhancement with large blue-shift upon grinding and is able to convert back to the initial state after thermal treatment, suggesting high sensitivity and fatigue resistance. An information carrier based on mechanochromic material is developed, by which the binary data can be written by mechanical encoding and erased by heating.