Intercluster aurophilicity-driven aggregation lighting circularly polarized luminescence of chiral gold clusters

• Published in: Nano research Vol. 13; no. 12; pp. 3248 - 3252
• Main Authors: Han, Zhen, Zhao, Xueli, Peng, Peng, Li, Si, Zhang, Chong, Cao, Man, Li, Kai, Wang, Zhao-Yang, Zang, Shuang-Quan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Beijing Tsinghua University Press 01.12.2020
• Subjects: Agglomeration; Atomic/Molecular Structure and Spectra; Biomedicine; Biotechnology; Chemistry and Materials Science; Circular polarization; Clean energy; Condensed Matter Physics; Crystallization; Emissions; Gold; Ligands; Light emitting diodes; Luminescence; Materials Science; Metal clusters; Nanotechnology; Organic light emitting diodes; Photoluminescence; Photons; Quantum dots; Research Article; Single crystals; gold cluster; aggregation-induced emission; atomic precision; circularly polarized luminescence; intercluster aurophilicity
• ISSN: 1998-0124; 1998-0000
• DOI: 10.1007/s12274-020-2997-0

Herein, we prepared two novel pairs of enantiomeric gold cluster complexes, AU 4 PL 4 /Au 4 PD 4 and ( Au 4 L 4 ) n /( Au 4 D 4 ) n with atomic precision. In Au 4 PL 4 /Au 4 PD 4 , the discrete chiral Au 4 -based aggregation-induced emission (AIE) luminogens are separated by bulky substitutes. The corresponding aggregates are cyan-emitting with a photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) of 14.4%. Upon decreasing the size of the substituents, these chiral Au 4 clusters are strung together by inter-cluster Au-Au interactions, which cause a low-energy green emission from the aggregated ( Au 4 L 4 ) n /(Au 4 D 4 ) n with a much higher PLQY of 41.4% and more intense circularly polarised photoluminescence (CPL) with a dissymmetry factor | g PL | of 7.0 × 10 − 3 . Using ( Au 4 L 4 ) n / (Au 4 D 4 ) n , circularly polarised organic light-emitting diodes (CP-OLEDs) were for the first time fabricated with | g EL | = | g PL |. These findings signify that inter-cluster metallophilic interactions are a new and important type of driving force for AIE and crystallization-induced emission (CIE), suggesting great potential of CPL-active metal clusters in CP-OLEDs.