Nanoconfinement Enabled High-Efficiency and Long-Lifetime Multicolor Afterglow Hydrogels for Advanced Spatiotemporal...

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Polymer Chemistry
• Supramolecular Chemistry

Background:

• Developing organic afterglow hydrogels with efficient exciton harvesting, long lifetimes, and large deformation capabilities remains challenging.
• Existing materials often lack the combination of tunable emission, mechanical robustness, and advanced functionalities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a nano-restriction engineered strategy for creating multifunctional organic afterglow hydrogels.
• To achieve efficient exciton harvesting, ultralong triplet lifetimes, and large deformations in a single hydrogel system.

Main Methods:

• Embedding a rigid, chromatically diverse hydrogen bond supramolecular framework into hydrogel networks.
• Utilizing the confined microenvironment of the supramolecular framework to suppress non-radiative quenching and dissipate stress.
• Synthesizing hydrogels with tunable afterglow emissions and robust mechanical properties.

Main Results:

• Synthesized hydrogels exhibit tunable afterglow from deep blue to orange-red with lifetimes up to 2535 ms and quantum yields >29.4%.
• Materials demonstrate high mechanical strength (7.7 MPa compressive strength) and fracture strain (~1400%) with excellent stability.
• Programmable color and decay dynamics enable spatiotemporally resolved encryption, and efficient singlet oxygen sensitization leads to >99.9% antibacterial efficacy.

Conclusions:

• The nano-restriction strategy successfully creates multifunctional afterglow soft materials with high exciton utilization and ultralong lifetimes.
• These hydrogels offer a promising platform for applications in encryption, wound healing, and advanced optical materials.
• The approach provides a general route for designing robust, high-performance afterglow soft materials.