Barbier Hyperbranching Polymerization-Induced Emission toward Facile Fabrication of White Light-Emitting Diode and Light-Harvesting Film

Abstract

Luminescent polymers are generally constructed through polymerization of luminescent moieties. Polymerization itself, however, is mainly used for constructing polymer main chain, and the importance of polymerization on luminescence has yet to be explored. Here, we demonstrate a polymerization-induced emission strategy producing luminescent polymers by introducing Barbier reaction to hyperbranching polymerization, which allows luminescent properties to be easily tuned from the traditional type to an aggregation-induced emission type by simply adjusting the monomer structure and the polymerization time. When rotation about the phenyl groups in hyperbranched polytriphenylmethanols (HPTPMs) is hindered, HPTPMs exhibit traditional emission property. When all phenyl groups of HPTPM are rotatable, i.e., p,p',p″-HPTPM, it exhibits interesting aggregation-induced emission property with tunable emission colors from blue to yellow, by just adjusting polymerization time. Further applications of aggregation-induced emission type luminescent polymers are illustrated by the facile fabrication of white light-emitting diode (LED) and light-harvesting film with an antenna effect >14. This Barbier hyperbranching polymerization-induced emission provides a new strategy for the design of luminescent polymers and expands the methodology and functionality library of both hyperbranching polymerization and luminescent polymers.