Charge transfer materials fabricated by supramolecular strategy with a broad emission spectrum for realizing information encryption

Novel charge transfer (CT) materials with a broad emission spectrum have been successfully developed in aqueous phase based on supramolecular self-assembly between different electron donors and electron acceptors. For electron donor BrAc (dimethylacridine-based derivative) with excellent self-aggregation property, it can co-aggregate with various electron acceptors to form nanoaggregates in water, leading to the multicolor CT emission with long luminescence lifetime. The emission colors cover from deep blue (425 nm) to orange (550 nm) region with lifetimes in the range of 61.2 ns–605.1 ns. As for the analogous donor (QaAc), which self-aggregation ability was poor, water-soluble pillar[5]arene (WP5) can be introduced to promote the aggregation to induce the similar CT emission. Moreover, reversible control of the CT emission and lifetime of BrAc-3TPYMB can be easily achieved via alternating addition of trifluoroacetic acid and triethylamine. Meanwhile, the donor–acceptor complex with white light emission can be conveniently constructed by incorporating three different acceptor molecules (3TMB, 3TPYMB, and TRZF2) with appropriate ratios. In addition, benefiting from the strong CT emission when donor and acceptor are close enough, thermal writing of quick response code and further information decryption has been successfully realized. Novel charge transfer (CT) materials with a broad emission spectrum have been successfully developed in aqueous phase based on supramolecular self-assembly between different electron donors and electron acceptors, which has potential applications in information encryption. [Display omitted] •Charge transfer materials with long-lived multi-color emission have been developed based on supramolecular strategy.•Reversible control of the charge transfer emission can be achieved via alternating addition of trifluoroacetic acid and triethylamine.•The donor-acceptor complex with white light emission can be conveniently constructed by adjusting the acceptor ratios.•Thermal writing of quick response code and further information decryption has been successfully realized.