Room-temperature phosphorescence of a supercooled liquid: kinetic stabilisation by desymmetrisation

Abstract

Achieving organic room-temperature phosphorescence (RTP) in a solvent-free liquid state is a challenging task because the liquid state provides a less rigid environment than the crystal. Here, we report that an unsymmetrical heteroaromatic 1,2-diketone forms an organic RTP liquid. This diketone exists as a kinetically stable supercooled liquid, which resists crystallisation even under pricking or shearing stresses, and remains as a liquid for several months. The unsymmetrical diketone core is flexible, with eight distinct conformers possible, which prevents nucleation and growth for the liquid–solid transition. Interestingly, the thermodynamically stable crystalline solid-state was non-emissive. Thus, the RTP of the diketone was found to be liquiefaction-induced. Single-crystal X-ray structure analysis revealed that the diminished RTP of the crystal is due to insufficient intermolecular interactions and restricted access to an emissive conformer. Our work demonstrates that flexible unsymmetrical skeletons are promising motifs for bistable liquid–solid molecular systems, which are useful for the further development of stimuli-responsive materials that use phase transitions.