Double carbon dot assembled mesoporous aluminas: solid-state dual-emission photoluminescence and multifunctional applications

Abstract

Carbon dot (CD)-based solid-state fluorescent materials have attracted a lot of attention in recent years owing to their superior optical and environmentally friendly properties, demonstrating a potential use in many applications. However, previously reported CD-based solid-state fluorescent materials mostly assemble a type of CD in the matrix which has only a single characteristic peak, and those of assembled double CDs with two characteristic peaks are very rare. Such a drawback restricts their further application, particularly in the field of white light emitting diodes (WLEDs). Herein, a rare type of double CD-based fluorescent material has been synthesized with dual characteristic peaks at 420 nm and 635 nm via the one-step assembly of blue- and red-emissive carbon dots (bCDs, rCDs) into mesoporous aluminas (MAs). The MA non-fluorescent matrix neither competes for absorbing excitation light nor absorbs the emission from the CDs, leading to excellent PL emitting properties and color and thermal stabilities. The emissive colors are tunable in the white-light region simply through adjusting excitation wavelengths, showing their great potential for phosphor-based WLEDs. In the field of agricultural planting, transparent sunlight conversion films based on co-assembled phosphors have been obtained, revealing inherent optical properties and an efficient process for converting sunlight into blue and red lights, which are essential for plant photosynthesis.