Chiral-Identified Multicolor-Tunable Photoluminescence via Excitation-Wavelength Modulation in 0D Antimony(III) Enantiomers for Multilevel Anti-Counterfeiting

Despite increasing research interests in chiral hybrid metal halides for photonic applications, the chiral-identified multicolor-tunable photoluminescence (PL) remains a fundamental challenge for multilevel anti-counterfeiting. Herein, 0D antimony(III) enantiomers, ( R / S -C 5 H 14 N 2 ) 2 SbCl 5 ·2Cl, are designed and synthesized via chiral induction using R / S -3-aminopiperidine dihydrochloride as structural templates. Hydrogen bonding networks between C 5 H 14 N 2 + and [SbCl 5 ] 2− contribute to the chiral helical structures with distinct asymmetry factors, facilitating efficient chiral transfer across organic–inorganic interfaces. Incredibly, R - and S -enantiomers exhibit an unprecedented excitation-dependent PL behavior with chiral differentiation, leading to multicolor-tunable emissions across the visible-light spectrum, from blue to white to yellow. This originates from the competitive transitions between the triplet-state ( 3 P n →S 0 ) self-trapped excitons (STEs) of [SbCl 5 ] 2− and the singlet-state (S 1 →S 0 ) fluorescence of R / S -C 5 H 14 N 2 + . Beyond that, chiral organic ligands break the inorganic symmetry, facilitating spin–orbit coupling and excited-state splitting of R - and S -enantiomers, which governs the electron absorption transitions to achieve the chiral-identified multicolor-tunable PL. These materials are further employed in multilevel anti-counterfeiting by fabricating these precise images into periodic pixel arrays. This work establishes a paradigm for designing eco-friendly chiral emitters with superior PL tunability, as well as provides fundamental insight into multi-channel radiative transition mechanisms.