Nature Communications (Mar 2024)

Anomalous anti-Kasha excited-state luminescence from symmetry-breaking heterogeneous carbon bisnanohoops

  • Xinyu Zhang,
  • Cheng Chen,
  • Wen Zhang,
  • Nan Yin,
  • Bing Yuan,
  • Guilin Zhuang,
  • Xiao-Ye Wang,
  • Pingwu Du

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-46848-x
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 15, no. 1
pp. 1 – 9

Abstract

Read online

Abstract It is a long-standing scientific controversy to achieve anti-Kasha-type multiple emissions by tuning the structures at a molecular level. Although it is known that some conjugated structures have excitation-dependent multiple emissions, no all-benzenoid molecules have yet been reported, the emissions of which originate from different excited states. Herein, we report the design of two symmetry-breaking heterogeneous carbon bisnanohoops that in solution become multiple fluorescent emitters with unusual anti-Kasha characteristics. This phenomenon can be spectroscopically and theoretically explained and will find applications in a wide range of sensing and imaging technologies.