Advances in Polymer-Based Organic Room-Temperature Phosphorescence Materials

Organic room-temperature phosphorescence (RTP) materials are actively explored as attractive candidates for optoelectronic and bioelectronics applications given their unique long-lived excited-state features and inherent merits of low-cost, appreciable functionality, and good biocompatibility. In recent years, many efforts in molecular design and aggregation modulation are devoted to achiev efficient RTP from organics, among which an emerging strategy focuses on confining chromophores within polymer matrices. Polymers possess intertwined chains making them a good platform to restrain the nonradiative decays and quenching, allowing the triplet excitons to survive a long time enough for emission at room temperature. Progress relating to polymer-based organic RTP materials is highlighted as a new creative subject in the field. This review outlines recent advancements in polymer-based organic RTP materials. The fundamental mechanism of organic RTP is first presented. Thereafter, design considerations and strategies to construct polymer-based organic RTP materials are summarized in detail. Several promising progresses in the proposed use of these RTP materials, such as encryption and anti-counterfeiting, sensors, and bioimaging are overviewed. Finally, the challenges and future perspectives are discussed to emphasize the directions that deserve focus attention in the field. A general overview is presented on the emergence of RTP-emissive polymers and the rational enhancement of their performance based on the structure-property relationship. The potential strengths of polymeric RTP characteristics referring to optoelectronic and bioelectronics applications are discussed. It is hoped that this review can provide readers with an overall view of the development of polymer-based RTP materials and boost their further research. image