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Updated: Aug 5, 2026

From Molecules to Materials: Engineering New Ionic Liquid Crystals Through Halogen Bonding
Published on: March 24, 2018
Stable Full-Color and Single-Phase White Emission in a Family of Isomeric Organic Cu(I) Iodides
Hui Peng1,2, Hairui Zhang1, Zhuodong Li1
1Guangxi Key Laboratory of Processing for Non-ferrous Metals and Featured Materials, and School of Resources, Environment and Materials, Guangxi University, Nanning, China.
Abstract:
Organic Cu(I) halides feature highly designable structures, systematic tunability, and efficient emission; however, simultaneously achieving full-color tunable emission and single-phase white emission with thermal- and chemical-stimulated optical responses in organic isomeric Cu(I) halides polymorphs have never been reported. Herein, we synthesized a family of zero-dimensional organic isomeric Cu(I) iodides of α-/β-/γ-/δ-/ε-(ITPP)2Cu2I4, all of which have the same molecular formula and crystallize in monoclinic space group P21/n. However, due to the different arrangement orientation of [Cu2I4]2- clusters and the surrounding molecular environment, α-/β-/γ-/δ-/ε-(ITPP)2Cu2I4 exhibits blue, green, yellow, red, and white emission, with an optimal luminous efficiency of 92.4%. Interestingly, α-/β-/γ-/δ-/ε-(ITPP)2Cu2I4 shows tunable dual self-trapped excitons emission under different temperatures, making them suitable for optical thermometry with an ultrahigh relative thermal sensitivity of 13.17%·K-1. Moreover, external chemical stimuli can induce luminescent transformation between different hybrid Cu(I) iodides, which enables us to demonstrate their application in multiple anti-counterfeiting. Parallelly, hybrid Cu(I) iodides also exhibit efficient x-ray scintillation with a high light yield of 63500 ± 1200 photons/MeV, and a customizable large-area flexible paper-based film has been prepared in situ using an "ancient fabric dyeing process", demonstrating its application in x-ray imaging with an ultrahigh spatial resolution of 20.8 lp/mm.
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