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Updated: Jul 1, 2025

On-Chip Crystallization and Large-Scale Serial Diffraction at Room Temperature
Published on: March 11, 2022
Tailoring raloxifene into single-component molecular crystals possessing multilevel stimuli-responsive
Zhichao Pan1, Jinming Song1, Shasha Zhang1
1Key Laboratory for Advanced Materials, Joint International Research Laboratory of Precision Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Feringa Nobel Prize Scientist Joint Research Center, Frontiers Science Center for Materiobiology and Dynamic Chemistry, Institute of Fine Chemicals, School of Chemistry & Molecular Engineering, East China University of Science & Technology, Shanghai 200237, China.
Abstract:
Simultaneously achieving room-temperature phosphorescence (RTP) and multiple-stimuli responsiveness in a single-component system is of significance but remains challenging. Crystallization has been recognized to be a workable strategy to fulfill the above task. However, how the molecular packing mode affects the intersystem crossing and RTP lifetime concurrently remains unclear so far. Herein, four economic small-molecular compounds, analogues of the famous drug raloxifene (RALO), are facilely synthesized and further explored as neat single-component and stimuli-responsive RTP emitters via crystallization engineering. Thanks to their simple structures and high ease to crystallize, these raloxifene analogues function as models to clarify the important role of molecular packing in the RTP and stimuli-responsiveness properties. Thorough combination of the single-crystal structure analysis and theoretical calculations clearly manifests that the tight antiparallel molecular packing mode is the key point to their RTP behaviors. Interestingly, harnessing the controllable and reversible phase transitions of the two polymorphs of RALO-OAc driven by mechanical force, solvent vapor, and heat, a single-component multilevel stimuli-responsive platform with tunable emission color is established and further exploited for optical information encryption. This work would shed light on the rational design of multi-stimuli responsive RTP systems based on single-component organics.

