Interface-Confined Triplet Sensitization and Photon Upconversion in Pyrene-Tetracyanobenzene Charge-Transfer Cocrystals
Micro-cocrystals of the intermolecular charge-transfer (CT) complex formed from pyrene and tetracyanobenzene can be fabricated via a solution-based method. Intersystem crossing of the directly excited CT exciton in the cocrystal is observed, yielding a CT triplet exciton that undergoes efficient triplet-triplet energy transfer to a diphenylanthracence (DPA)-based triplet acceptor. For the first time, we demonstrate that these micro-cocrystals can act as triplet sensitizers to upconvert the emission of liquid-state DPA triplet acceptors, enabling highly efficient triplet-triplet annihilation photon upconversion (TTA-UC) from 532 to 430 nm. This work demonstrates the utilization of CT excitons as triplet sensitizers in a TTA-UC process, providing a novel approach for efficient and heavy-atom-free UC systems.
Authors
- Xuefeng Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-9921-0176)
- Pengfei Duan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5971-7546)
- Zhenzi Bai (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1274-1653)
- Jianlei Han (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6566-7621)
- Yonghong Shi
- Tonghan Zhao (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5300-1651)
- Zihao Xu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0805-8533)
- Jiao Mu
- Xue Jin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4128-978X)
Institutions
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Center for NanoScience (DE)
- Jiaxing University (CN)
- Northwest Institute For Non-Ferrous Metal Research (CN)
- Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences (CN)
- Nanosystem (Russia) (RU)
- National Center for Nanoscience and Technology (CN)
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Journal of the American Chemical Society
- Published
- 2025-11-20
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.5c17410
- Primary Topic
- Luminescence and Fluorescent Materials
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00