Achieving high singlet-oxygen generation by applying the heavy-atom effect to thermally activated delayed fluorescent materials

Ya-Fang Xiao; Jia-Xiong Chen; Wen-Cheng Chen; Xiuli Zheng; Chen Cao; Jihua Tan; Xiao Cui; Zhanxiang Yuan; Shaomin Ji; Guihong Lu; Weimin Liu; Pengfei Wang; Shengliang Li; Chun-Sing Lee

doi:10.1039/d0cc08323b

Achieving high singlet-oxygen generation by applying the heavy-atom effect to thermally activated delayed fluorescent materials

Chem Commun (Camb). 2021 May 18;57(40):4902-4905. doi: 10.1039/d0cc08323b.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Center of Super-Diamond and Advanced Films (COSDAF) and Department of Chemistry, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 999077, P. R. China. apcslee@cityu.edu.hk and Joint Laboratory of Nano-Organic Functional Materials and Devices (TIPC and CityU), City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, P. R. China.
² School of Chemical Engineering and Light Industry, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510006, P. R. China.
³ Joint Laboratory of Nano-Organic Functional Materials and Devices (TIPC and CityU), City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, P. R. China and Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, People's Republic of China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Biochemical Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1 North 2nd Street, Zhong Guan Cun, Beijing 100190, China.

PMID: 33870972
DOI: 10.1039/d0cc08323b

Abstract

A bromine-substituted thermally activated delayed fluorescent (TADF) molecule AQCzBr2 is designed with both small singlet-triplet splitting (ΔEST) and increased spin-orbit coupling (SOC) to boost intersystem crossing (ISC) for singlet oxygen generation. AQCzBr2 nanoparticles (NPs) demonstrate high productivity of singlet oxygen generation (ΦΔ = 0.91) which allows highly efficient photodynamic therapy toward cancer cells.