Tailoring Fluorescence-Phosphorescence Emission with a Single Nanocavity

Realizing the dual emission of fluorescence-phosphorescence in a single system is an extremely important topic in the fields of biological imaging, sensing, and information encryption. However, the phosphorescence process is usually in an inherently "dark state" at room temperature due to the involvement of spin-forbidden transition and the rapid non-radiative decay rate of the triplet state. In this work, we achieved luminescent harvesting of the dark phosphorescence processes by coupling singlet-triplet molecular emitters with a rationally designed plasmonic cavity. The achieved Purcell enhancement effect of over 1000-fold allows for overcoming the triplet forbidden transitions, enabling radiation enhancement with selectable emission wavelengths. Spectral results and theoretical simulations indicate that the fluorescence-phosphorescence peak position can be intelligently tailored in a broad range of wavelengths, from visible to near-infrared. Our study sheds new light on plasmonic tailoring of molecular emission behavior, which is crucial for advancing research on plasmon-tailored fluorescence-phosphorescence spectroscopy in optoelectronics and biomedicine.