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Noncoordinating Substituent Modulation Strategy Lights Up Uranyl Organic Complexes for Sensitive X-ray Detection and
Yang Yang1, Zhiyong Peng1,2, Benxian Huang1
1State Key Laboratory of Radiation Medicine and Protection, School of Radiation Medicine and Protection, Collaborative Innovation Center of Radiological Medicine of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, China.
None:
Uranyl organic complexes (UOCs) commonly exhibit low photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) due to their high nonradiative transition rate (knr) caused by jammed ligand-to-uranyl energy transfer as well as vibrational energy dissipation derived from the flexible structure. Herein, we proposed a noncoordinating substituent modulation strategy to regulate the electronic structure and the stacking mode of UOCs. An over 60-fold reduction in knr boosts the PLQY from 0.24% (UOC 1) to 42.8% (UOC 3), the highest value in heteroleptic UOCs. With this benefit, UOC 3 emerges as a top-performing uranium-based scintillator for sensitive X-ray detection. Furthermore, a uniform and flexible scintillator film prepared from UOC 3 exhibited a high spatial resolution of approximately 5 lp mm-1 for efficient X-ray imaging.
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