Tunable Multicolor Lanthanide Supramolecular Assemblies with White Light Emission Confined by Cucurbituril[7]

Abstract

AbstractMacrocyclic confinement‐induced supramolecular luminescence materials have important application value in the fields of bio‐sensing, cell imaging, and information anti‐counterfeiting. Herein, a tunable multicolor lanthanide supramolecular assembly with white light emission is reported, which is constructed by co‐assembly of cucurbit[7]uril (CB[7]) encapsulating naphthylimidazolium dicarboxylic acid (G1)/Ln (Eu3+/Tb3+) complex and carbon quantum dots (CD). Benefiting from the macrocyclic confinement effect of CB[7], the supramolecular assembly not only extends the fluorescence intensity of the lanthanide complex G1/Tb3+ by 36 times, but also increases the quantum yield by 28 times and the fluorescence lifetime by 12 times. Furthermore, the CB[7]/G1/Ln assembly can further co‐assemble with CD and diarylethene derivatives (DAE) to realize the intelligently‐regulated full‐color spectrum including white light, which results from the competitive encapsulation of adamantylamine and CB[7], the change of pH, and photochromic DAE. The multi‐level logic gate based on lanthanide supramolecular assembly is successfully applied in anti‐counterfeiting system and information storage, providing an effective method for the research of new luminescent intelligent materials.