Photostable Anisometric Lanthanide Complexes as Promising Materials for Optical Applications

Abstract

Uniform luminescent films with high optical quality are promising materials for modern molecular photonics. Such film materials based on β-diketonate complexes of lanthanides have the following application problem: rapid luminescence degradation under UV radiation, low thermostability, poor mechanical properties, and aggregation propensity. An alternative approach to solving these problems is the use of anisometric analogues of β-diketonate compounds of lanthanides (III). The main advantage of such compounds is that they do not crystallize because of long hydrocarbon substituents in the structure of complexes, so they can be used to fabricate thin nano-, micro-, and macroscale uniform film materials by a melt-processing technique at relatively low temperatures, as well as by spin-coating. The method of fabrication of microscale luminescent film materials with controlled optical properties from anisometric analogues of Ln(DBM)3Phen and Ln(bzac)3Phen complexes (Ln = Eu, Tb) is proposed in this paper. Within the framework of this research, we developed original films which are highly uniform and transparent. An important advantage of these films is their high photostability and potential for applications as reusable luminescent sensors and light converters.

Keywords

• lanthanide complexes
• luminescence
• thin films
• luminescent sensors