The development of mechanoluminescence from organic compounds: breakthrough and deep insight

Abstract

Organic mechanoluminescence (ML) compounds have experienced breakthrough developments in recent years, with ML being discovered in many kinds of organic compounds. Accordingly, the ML composition is becoming more complicated; complications can be observed from the initial stages of nitrogen discharge to fluorescence, dual emission of fluorescence and phosphorescence and the more novel persistent room-temperature phosphorescence (RTP) on to photo-sensitive ML, presenting unique luminous properties with more perspectives. Since ML is found to be highly correlated with the molecular configuration and the intermolecular packing style in the aggregate state, the photophysical properties should be analyzed carefully with the consideration of MUSIC (Molecular Uniting Set Identified Characteristic). In this review paper, we summarized the recently reported organic ML compounds, which were classified according to their luminous and chemical structure features. The investigation of organic ML can promote the development of “aggregated state chemistry” and the luminous theory in the aggregate state.