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  • A general design approach t...
    Li, Ya-Jie; Cui, Wei-Rong; Jiang, Qiao-Qiao; Wu, Qiong; Liang, Ru-Ping; Luo, Qiu-Xia; Qiu, Jian-Ding

    Nature communications, 08/2021, Volume: 12, Issue: 1
    Journal Article

    Electrochemiluminescence (ECL) plays a key role in analysis and sensing because of its high sensitivity and low background. Its wide applications are however limited by a lack of highly tunable ECL luminophores. Here we develop a scalable method to design ECL emitters of covalent organic frameworks (COFs) in aqueous medium by simultaneously restricting the donor and acceptor to the COFs' tight electron configurations and constructing high-speed charge transport networks through olefin linkages. This design allows efficient intramolecular charge transfer for strong ECL, and no exogenous poisonous co-reactants are needed. Olefin-linked donor-acceptor conjugated COFs, systematically synthesized by combining non-ECL active monomers with C or C symmetry, exhibit strong ECL signals, which can be boosted by increasing the chain length and conjugation of monomers. The present concept demonstrates that the highly efficient COF-based ECL luminophores can be precisely designed, providing a promising direction toward COF-based ECL phosphors.