Amplification of Circularly Polarized Luminescence through Triplet–Triplet Annihilation-Based Photon Upconversion

Amplification of circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) is demonstrated in a triplet-triplet annihilation-based photon upconversion (TTA-UC) system. When chiral binaphthyldiamine acceptors are sensitized with an achiral Pt(II) octaethylporphine (PtOEP) in solution, upconverted circularly polarized luminescence (UC-CPL) were observed for the first time, in which the positive or negative circularly polarized emission could be obtained respectively, following the molecular chirality of the acceptors (R/S). More interestingly, one order of magnitude amplification of the dissymmetry factor g_lum in UC-CPL was obtained in comparison with the normal promoted CPL. The multistep photophysical process of TTA-UC including triplet-triplet energy transfer (TTET) and triplet-triplet annihilation (TTA) have been suggested to enhance the UC-CPL, which provided a new strategy to design CPL materials with a higher dissymmetry factor.