A comprehensive strategy to boost the quantum yield of luminescence of europium complexes

Lanthanide luminescence has many important applications in anion sensing, protein recognition, nanosized phosphorescent devices, optoelectronic devices, immunoassays, etc. Luminescent europium complexes, in particular, act as light conversion molecular devices by absorbing ultraviolet (UV) light and by emitting light in the red visible spectral region. The quantum yield of luminescence is defined as the ratio of the number of photons emitted over the number of UV photons absorbed. The higher the quantum yield of luminescence, the higher the sensitivity of the application. Here we advance a conjecture that allows the design of europium complexes with higher values of quantum yields by simply increasing the diversity of good ligands coordinated to the lanthanide ion. Indeed, for the studied cases, the percent boost obtained on the quantum yield proved to be strong: of up to 81%, accompanied by faster radiative rate constants, since the emission becomes less forbidden.