Supercooled Liquids with Dynamic Room Temperature Phosphorescence Using Terminal Hydroxyl Engineering

Abstract Dynamic room temperature phosphorescence (RTP) materials have potential applications in optoelectronics, which inevitably suffer from poor processability, flexibility or stretchability. Herein, we report a concise strategy to develop supercooled liquids (SCLs) with dynamic RTP behavior using terminal hydroxyl engineering. The terminal hydroxyls effectively hinder the nucleation process of molecules for the formation of stable SCLs after thermal annealing. Impressively, the SCLs show reversible RTP emission via alternant stimulation by UV light and heat. Photoactivated SCLs have phosphorescent efficiency of 8.50 % and a lifetime of 31.54 ms under ambient conditions. Regarding the dynamic RTP behavior and stretchability of SCLs, we demonstrate the applications in erasable data encryption and patterns on flexible substrates. This finding provides a design principle for obtaining SCLs with RTP and expands the potential applications of RTP materials in flexible optoelectronics.