Wide-Color-Tunable Afterglow Materials from Blue to Deep Red via Boric Acid Assisted Molecular Doping

The construction of afterglow materials with full-color tunable emissions is attractive but still a challenging task. Herein, a host–guest doping strategy was proposed to produce afterglow materials with an emission-color span of almost 210 nm (from blue to deep red) by heat treating the aqueous mixture of arylboronic acids and boric acid (BA). In-depth structural, photophysical, and theoretical studies revealed that the heat treatment process resulted in the dehydration of BA and the formation of a glassy state host, and arylboronic acids were loaded as guest molecules through H-bonds and covalent bonds with BA. The afterglow originated from arylboronic acids, and the afterglow color of products was related to their degree of conjugation of aromatic groups. The host–guest doping strategy significantly improved the photophysical performances of arylboronic acids, achieving a photoluminescence quantum yield as high as 81.7% and an emission lifetime of 2.90 s (afterglow >22 s). Triple information encryption based on emission lifetime and color-encoding was also achieved, demonstrating their commercial potential for use in anticounterfeiting and information storage.