Blue organic long-persistent luminescence via upconversion from charge-transfer to locally excited singlet state

Zesen Lin; Jinting Ye; Shin Shinohara; Yuya Tanaka; Rengo Yoshioka; Chin-Yiu Chan; Yi-Ting Lee; Xun Tang; Kirill Mitrofanov; Kai Wang; Hayato Ouchi; Liliia Moshniaha; Yemineni S. L. V. Narayana; Hisao Ishii; Xiao-Hong Zhang; Chihaya Adachi; Xian-Kai Chen; Ryota Kabe

doi:10.1038/s41467-025-58048-2

Blue organic long-persistent luminescence via upconversion from charge-transfer to locally excited singlet state

Zesen Lin^*
, Jinting Ye
, Shin Shinohara
, Yuya Tanaka
, Rengo Yoshioka
, Chin-Yiu Chan
, Yi-Ting Lee
, Xun Tang
, Kirill Mitrofanov
, Kai Wang
, Hayato Ouchi
, Liliia Moshniaha
, Yemineni S. L. V. Narayana
, Hisao Ishii
, Xiao-Hong Zhang
, Chihaya Adachi
, Xian-Kai Chen^*
, Ryota Kabe^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Journal Publications and Reviews › RGC 21 - Publication in refereed journal › peer-review

27 Citations (Scopus)

70 Downloads (CityUHK Scholars)

Abstract

Long-persistent luminescence (LPL) materials have applications from safety signage to bioimaging; however, existing organic LPL (OLPL) systems do not align with human scotopic vision, which is sensitive to blue light. We present a strategy to blueshift the emissions in binary OLPL systems by upconverting the charge-transfer (CT) to a locally excited (LE) singlet state. Through rigorous steady-state and time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy and wavelength-resolved thermoluminescence measurements, we provide the direct experimental evidence for this upconversion in OLPL systems featuring small energy offsets between the lowest-energy CT and LE singlet states. These systems exhibited strong room temperature LPL, particularly when extrinsic electron traps are added. Importantly, the developed OLPL system achieved Class A (ISO 17398) LPL, matching well with human scotopic vision. The findings not only elucidate the role of small energy offsets in modulating LPL but also provide potential avenues for enhancing the efficiency and applicability of OLPL materials. © The Author(s) 2025.

Original language	English
Article number	2686
Journal	Nature Communications
Volume	16
Online published	19 Mar 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-58048-2
Publication status	Published - 2025
Externally published	Yes

Funding

This work was supported by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) FOREST project (Grant No. JPMJFR201H; R.K.); JSPS KAKENHI (Grant No. JP21H02020; R.K.); OIST Proof of Concept program (R.K.); JSPS International Leading Research (ILR) (Grant No. 23K20039; C.A.); the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 52473190; X.-K.C.), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (Grant No. BK20240042; X.-K.C.), the Science and Technology Project of Suzhou (Grant No. ZXL2024394; X.-K.C.), Suzhou Key Laboratory of Functional Nano & Soft Materials (X.-K.C.), Collaborative Innovation Center of Suzhou Nano Science & Technology (X.-K.C.), and the 111 Project (X.-K.C.). We thank K. Kusuhara and N. Nakamura for their assistance with the preparation of all donor and acceptor materials. We thank Dr. Hao Ye for his assistance with the processing of time-resolved emission decay data.

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 7 Affordable and Clean Energy
SDG 9 Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
SDG 12 Responsible Consumption and Production

Publisher's Copyright Statement

This full text is made available under CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

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Lin, Z., Ye, J., Shinohara, S., Tanaka, Y., Yoshioka, R., Chan, C.-Y., Lee, Y.-T., Tang, X., Mitrofanov, K., Wang, K., Ouchi, H., Moshniaha, L., Narayana, Y. S. L. V., Ishii, H., Zhang, X.-H., Adachi, C., Chen, X.-K., & Kabe, R. (2025). Blue organic long-persistent luminescence via upconversion from charge-transfer to locally excited singlet state. Nature Communications, 16, Article 2686. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-58048-2

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title = "Blue organic long-persistent luminescence via upconversion from charge-transfer to locally excited singlet state",

abstract = "Long-persistent luminescence (LPL) materials have applications from safety signage to bioimaging; however, existing organic LPL (OLPL) systems do not align with human scotopic vision, which is sensitive to blue light. We present a strategy to blueshift the emissions in binary OLPL systems by upconverting the charge-transfer (CT) to a locally excited (LE) singlet state. Through rigorous steady-state and time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy and wavelength-resolved thermoluminescence measurements, we provide the direct experimental evidence for this upconversion in OLPL systems featuring small energy offsets between the lowest-energy CT and LE singlet states. These systems exhibited strong room temperature LPL, particularly when extrinsic electron traps are added. Importantly, the developed OLPL system achieved Class A (ISO 17398) LPL, matching well with human scotopic vision. The findings not only elucidate the role of small energy offsets in modulating LPL but also provide potential avenues for enhancing the efficiency and applicability of OLPL materials. {\textcopyright} The Author(s) 2025.",

author = "Zesen Lin and Jinting Ye and Shin Shinohara and Yuya Tanaka and Rengo Yoshioka and Chin-Yiu Chan and Yi-Ting Lee and Xun Tang and Kirill Mitrofanov and Kai Wang and Hayato Ouchi and Liliia Moshniaha and Narayana, \{Yemineni S. L. V.\} and Hisao Ishii and Xiao-Hong Zhang and Chihaya Adachi and Xian-Kai Chen and Ryota Kabe",

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Lin, Z, Ye, J, Shinohara, S, Tanaka, Y, Yoshioka, R, Chan, C-Y, Lee, Y-T, Tang, X, Mitrofanov, K, Wang, K, Ouchi, H, Moshniaha, L, Narayana, YSLV, Ishii, H, Zhang, X-H, Adachi, C, Chen, X-K & Kabe, R 2025, 'Blue organic long-persistent luminescence via upconversion from charge-transfer to locally excited singlet state', Nature Communications, vol. 16, 2686. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-58048-2

TY - JOUR

T1 - Blue organic long-persistent luminescence via upconversion from charge-transfer to locally excited singlet state

AU - Lin, Zesen

AU - Ye, Jinting

AU - Shinohara, Shin

AU - Tanaka, Yuya

AU - Yoshioka, Rengo

AU - Chan, Chin-Yiu

AU - Lee, Yi-Ting

AU - Tang, Xun

AU - Mitrofanov, Kirill

AU - Wang, Kai

AU - Ouchi, Hayato

AU - Moshniaha, Liliia

AU - Narayana, Yemineni S. L. V.

AU - Ishii, Hisao

AU - Zhang, Xiao-Hong

AU - Adachi, Chihaya

AU - Chen, Xian-Kai

AU - Kabe, Ryota

PY - 2025

Y1 - 2025

N2 - Long-persistent luminescence (LPL) materials have applications from safety signage to bioimaging; however, existing organic LPL (OLPL) systems do not align with human scotopic vision, which is sensitive to blue light. We present a strategy to blueshift the emissions in binary OLPL systems by upconverting the charge-transfer (CT) to a locally excited (LE) singlet state. Through rigorous steady-state and time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy and wavelength-resolved thermoluminescence measurements, we provide the direct experimental evidence for this upconversion in OLPL systems featuring small energy offsets between the lowest-energy CT and LE singlet states. These systems exhibited strong room temperature LPL, particularly when extrinsic electron traps are added. Importantly, the developed OLPL system achieved Class A (ISO 17398) LPL, matching well with human scotopic vision. The findings not only elucidate the role of small energy offsets in modulating LPL but also provide potential avenues for enhancing the efficiency and applicability of OLPL materials. © The Author(s) 2025.

AB - Long-persistent luminescence (LPL) materials have applications from safety signage to bioimaging; however, existing organic LPL (OLPL) systems do not align with human scotopic vision, which is sensitive to blue light. We present a strategy to blueshift the emissions in binary OLPL systems by upconverting the charge-transfer (CT) to a locally excited (LE) singlet state. Through rigorous steady-state and time-resolved photoluminescence spectroscopy and wavelength-resolved thermoluminescence measurements, we provide the direct experimental evidence for this upconversion in OLPL systems featuring small energy offsets between the lowest-energy CT and LE singlet states. These systems exhibited strong room temperature LPL, particularly when extrinsic electron traps are added. Importantly, the developed OLPL system achieved Class A (ISO 17398) LPL, matching well with human scotopic vision. The findings not only elucidate the role of small energy offsets in modulating LPL but also provide potential avenues for enhancing the efficiency and applicability of OLPL materials. © The Author(s) 2025.

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105000236381

UR - https://www.scopus.com/record/pubmetrics.uri?eid=2-s2.0-105000236381&origin=recordpage

U2 - 10.1038/s41467-025-58048-2

DO - 10.1038/s41467-025-58048-2

M3 - RGC 21 - Publication in refereed journal

C2 - 40102438

SN - 2041-1723

VL - 16

JO - Nature Communications

JF - Nature Communications

M1 - 2686

ER -

Blue organic long-persistent luminescence via upconversion from charge-transfer to locally excited singlet state

Abstract

Funding

UN SDGs

Publisher's Copyright Statement

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