Photo-stimuli-responsive Organic Room-Temperature Phosphorescent Materials

Purely organic room-temperature phosphorescent (RTP) materials have drawn increasing interest because of their long lifetime, persistent luminescence, and promising applications in bioimaging, anticounterfeiting, organic light-emitting diodes, and so forth. Various efficient design strategies have been proposed, which significantly promoted the understanding of the organic RTP materials. Recently, the research topic related to organic RTP materials is not merely limited to the development of brighter RTP materials with longer lifetimes; researchers have also been dedicated to developing more attractive organic RTP materials with stimuli-responsive properties, especially photostimulus, due to their tunable RTP properties and potential in producing intelligent materials. However, reported cases regarding photo-stimuli-responsive organic RTP materials are still scarce and lack systematic review. This review summarizes recent advances of photo-stimuli-responsive organic RTP materials in solution, crystalline, and amorphous states, with discussion of their phototunable RTP behaviors, internal design mechanism, and promising applications. It is expected to provide helpful guidance for the future development of photo-stimuli-responsive organic RTP materials.