Rational Design of Multicolor-Emitting Chiral Carbonized Polymer Dots for Full-Color and White Circularly Polarized Luminescence

Abstract

Light-emitting chiral carbonized polymer dots (Ch-CPDs) are attracting great interest because of their extraordinary photonic properties, but modulating their band-gap emission, especially at long wavelength, and maintaining their chiral structure to achieve multicolor, high-emission Ch-CPDs remains challenging. Reported here for the first time is the synthesis of red- and multicolor-emitting Ch-CPDs using the common precursors L-/D-tryptophan and o-phenylenediamine, and a solvothermal approach at one temperature. The quantum yield of the Ch-CPDs was between 31 % and 54 %. Supramolecular self-assembly provided multicolor-emitting Ch-CPDs showing novel circularly polarized luminescence, with the highest dissymmetric factor (glum) of 1×10−2. Importantly, circularly polarized white-emitting CPDs were fabricated for the first time by tuning the mixing ratio of the three colored Ch-CPDs in a gel. This strategy affords exciting opportunities for designing functional chiroptical materials.