Rational Ligand Engineering Enables Emission-Tunable Copper Nanoclusters for High-Performance LEDs
Mingshuai Yu1, Guizhong Luo2, Ying Lv3
1Department of Chemistry and Centre for Atomic Engineering of Advanced Materials, Key Laboratory of Structure and Functional Regulation of Hybrid Materials of Ministry of Education, Anhui Province Key Laboratory of Chemistry for Inorganic/Organic Hybrid Functionalized Materials, Anhui University, Hefei, Anhui230601, P. R. China.
Abstract:
Metal nanoclusters with atomic precision represent a highly attractive platform for designing optoelectronics, yet achieving controllable emission tuning and translating structural modulation into high-performance electroluminescent devices remains a major challenge. Here we realize precise emission wavelength tuning from yellow to red by rational ligand engineering toward a family of atomically precise Cu2(BINAP)2(SR)2 clusters. The modulation mechanism of the correlations between electron-withdrawing capability of substituents and tunable emission wavelengths was clearly elucidated by density functional theory calculations. Besides, the methyl-functionalized Cu2 clusters show remarkably enhanced photoluminescence intensity, and the cluster-based emitters in light-emitting diodes displays a high external quantum efficiency of 14.53%, together with favorable brightness and efficiency stability. This work not only validates the effectiveness of ligand substitution in tailoring the photophysical properties of copper clusters but also establishes a general design route toward high-performance, color-tunable cluster-based luminescent materials for advanced optoelectronic applications.
