Isomer design unlocks rainbow phosphorescence

Achieving predictable color-tunable organic room-temperature phosphorescence (RTP) remains challenging due to limited understanding of triplet-state regulation in heteroaromatic systems. Carbazole and benzindole isomers provide an ideal platform to clarify how nitrogen positional isomerism governs triplet exciton behavior and emission energetics. Here, we establish a unified comparative framework to systematically investigate carbazole together with Bd[f], Bd[e], and Bd[g]. Nitrogen-site modulation within the fused tricyclic skeleton generates distinct red, yellow, green, and blue phosphorescence, while mechanochemical solvent-free synthesis enables scalable preparation of previously inaccessible benzindole isomers. Photophysical measurements combined with DFT/TD-DFT calculations, single-crystal analysis, and interaction region indicator theory reveal that positional isomerism controls exciton localization, triplet stabilization, and nonradiative decay independent of the host matrix. Here, we show that isomer-regulated triplet dynamics enable full-spectrum RTP, ultralong lifetimes up to 4.23 s, TSFRET behavior, and matrix-universal multifunctionality, establishing a general molecular design principle for rainbow-like organic phosphorescent materials.

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Publication Details

Journal
Nature Communications
Published
2026-03-17
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-70784-7
Primary Topic
Luminescence and Fluorescent Materials
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00
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article

Isomer design unlocks rainbow phosphorescence

Xinyue Xu, Mingliang Sun, Erkin Zakhidov, Dong Ding et al.
Nature Communications
Luminescence and Fluorescent Materials
article

Isomer design unlocks rainbow phosphorescence

Xinyue Xu, Mingliang Sun, Erkin Zakhidov, Dong Ding, Shaoyang Han, Xinyu Ding, Feng Li
article en

Abstract

Achieving predictable color-tunable organic room-temperature phosphorescence (RTP) remains challenging due to limited understanding of triplet-state regulation in heteroaromatic systems. Carbazole and benzindole isomers provide an ideal platform to clarify how nitrogen positional isomerism governs triplet exciton behavior and emission energetics. Here, we establish a unified comparative framework to systematically investigate carbazole together with Bd[f], Bd[e], and Bd[g]. Nitrogen-site modulation within the fused tricyclic skeleton generates distinct red, yellow, green, and blue phosphorescence, while mechanochemical solvent-free synthesis enables scalable preparation of previously inaccessible benzindole isomers. Photophysical measurements combined with DFT/TD-DFT calculations, single-crystal analysis, and interaction region indicator theory reveal that positional isomerism controls exciton localization, triplet stabilization, and nonradiative decay independent of the host matrix. Here, we show that isomer-regulated triplet dynamics enable full-spectrum RTP, ultralong lifetimes up to 4.23 s, TSFRET behavior, and matrix-universal multifunctionality, establishing a general molecular design principle for rainbow-like organic phosphorescent materials.

Nature Communications
Academy of Sciences Republic of Uzbekistan (UZ), Qingdao University of Science and Technology (CN), Ocean University of China (CN)
Openalex Percentile: Top 21%
Luminescence and Fluorescent Materials
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