Photoactive Hybrid Polymer Films Incorporated with Lanthanide Complexes and ZIF-8 for Selectively Excited Multicolored Luminescence

Graphical A series of photoactive polymer hybrid films fabricated with both Ln complexes and ZIF-8 is described. The films show discrete luminescence from ZIF-8 and the Ln complexes, and there is no energy coupling between the two emissive centers. By selective excitation with different wavelengths, the luminescence can be tuned from blue (ZIF-8) to red (Eu 3+ ), green (Tb 3+ ) or yellow (Eu 3+ /Tb 3+ ) and even white by integrating the emission of both Eu 3+ and the polymer unit. A series of photoactive polymer hybrid films fabricated with both lanthanide complexes and ZIF-8 [zeolite imidazole framework, a kind of metal organic framework, Zn(MeIM) 2 , MeIM = 2-methylimidazole] was prepared. ZIF-8 and the lanthanide complexes Ln-L [Ln = Eu, Tb; L = AA (acetylacetonate), phen (1,10-phenanthroline), TAA (trifluoroacetylacetonate), TTA (trifluoroacetylacetonate)] were assembled with the the monomers 4-vinyl pyridine (VPD) and ethylene-methyl acrylate (EMA), forming the final hybrid polymer films after initiation with benzoyl peroxide (BPO). The products are are indicated as PEMA-PVPD⊃Ln-L/ZIF-8 [PEMA-PVPD: copolymer of poly 4-vinyl pyridine (PVPD) and polyethylene-methyl acrylate (PEMA)]. The SEM images of these hybrid films indicate homogeneous dense packing and a high degree of coverage of the crystals on the ITO glass. The luminescent behavior of all the hybrid films was studied in detail. Discrete luminescence of the ZIF-8 unit and the lanthanide complexes was observed in which energy coupling between the two emissive centers does not exist. Therefore, by selectively exciting these hybrid films with different wavelengths, the luminescence colors of them can be tuned from blue (for ZIF-8) to red (for Eu 3+ ), green (for Tb 3+ ), yellow (for Eu 3+ /Tb 3+ ) and even to white by integrating the emission of both Eu 3+ /Tb 3+ into the polymer unit (PEMA-PVPD). These results are useful and have potential application in optical devices for displays or encoding.