Mode‐Selective C═C and C─N Vibrational Coupling Modulates Nonradiative Decay in Regioisomeric Organic Phosphorescent Emission
Structural isomerization has emerged as an effective strategy for improving the performance of organic room-temperature phosphorescent materials, but reported explanations are mainly attributed to differences in molecular packing, spin-orbit coupling, excited-state electronic configurations, etc. The intrinsic vibrational differences encoded in the molecular structures of isomers, which may fundamentally govern triplet-state excitons' nonradiative behaviors, remain largely unexplored. Here, we construct five phosphorescent molecular structural isomerization pairs based on both purely hydrocarbon and heteroatom-containing aromatic compounds, elucidating how regioisomerization redistributes local aromatic character and skeletal rigidity, thereby selectively suppressing the dominant dissipative vibrational modes (C═C and C─N) in the triplet state. This selective vibrational restriction effectively reduces nonradiative decay loss and ultimately determines the efficiency and lifetime of triplet excitons. The representative regioisomeric phosphor further demonstrates long-lived bioimaging capability with an extended in vivo imaging window, highlighting the practical relevance of this design strategy. This work identifies dominant vibrational coordinates as the primary origin of isomer-dependent RTP behaviors and establishes a vibrationally resolved mechanistic framework for excited-state relaxation engineering.
Authors
- Yunxiang Lei (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3300-0811)
- Yongfeng Zhang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7219-8835)
- Yue Ren (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0004-7449-5410)
- Xiandong Chen
- Junfang Yang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-4481-1776)
- Penghao Bai
- Youran Xu
- Ke Tao
- Quangen Zhang
Institutions
- Beijing Institute of Technology (CN)
- Wenzhou University (CN)
- Huaibei Normal University (CN)
- Wenzhou Medical University (CN)
- First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University (CN)
- Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics (DE)
- University of Chinese Academy of Sciences (CN)
- Beijing University of Chemical Technology (CN)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Angewandte Chemie International Edition
- Published
- 2026-10-08
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.5600971
- Primary Topic
- Luminescence and Fluorescent Materials
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00