Supramolecular engineering of luminescent materials: From molecular design to optoelectronic applications

Luminescent materials often face trade-offs between efficiency, stability, and dynamic responsiveness, which limit their performance in advanced optoelectronic devices and bioimaging. Supramolecular chemistry offers a strategic solution by precisely modulating non-covalent interactions, enabling assemblies to suppress vibrational relaxation via conformational locking, enhance intersystem crossing through triplet-level tuning, and optimize energy transfer, thereby improving quantum yields and emission lifetimes. This review highlights synergistic supramolecular mechanisms that bridge molecular design and photophysical regulation across perylene bisimide materials, aggregation-induced emission luminogens, perovskite materials, room-temperature phosphorescence materials, and organic nonlinear optical materials, alongside their applications in luminescent displays, bioimaging, and information encryption. Despite notable advances, biocompatibility and signal stability remain challenging. AI and biohybrid approaches offer pathways toward programmable emission control. Schematic illustration of supramolecular engineering strategies for designing high-performance luminescent materials and their interdisciplinary applications in high-definition displays, in vivo imaging, and dynamic information encryption.