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

Macrocyclic 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.