Swift Electrofluorochromism of Donor–Acceptor Conjugated Polytriphenylamines

Electrofluorochromic (EFC) materials, which exhibit electrochemically controllable fluorescence, hold great promise in optoelectronic devices and biological analysis. Here we design such donor-acceptor (D-A) conjugated polymers-P(TPACO) and P(TCEC)-that contain the same electron-rich and oxidizable polytriphenylamine (PTPA) as π-backbone, yet with different electron-deficient ketone and cyano units as pendant groups, respectively. They both exhibit solvatochromic effects due to intrinsic characteristics of intramolecular charge transfer (ICT). Compared to P(TPACO), P(TCEC) shows stronger ICT, which leads to higher electrochemical oxidation potential and lower ion diffusion coefficient. Moreover, both polymers present simultaneous electrochromic (EC) and EFC behaviors with multistate display and remarkably rapid fluorescence response. The response time of P(TPACO) is as short as 0.19 s, nearly 4-fold faster than that of P(TCEC) (0.92 s). Such rapid response is found to be determined by the ion diffusion coefficient which is associated with the ICT nature. Finally, the EFC display device based on P(TPACO) is successfully demonstrated, which shows green fluorescence ON/OFF switching upon applied potentials. This work has successfully demonstrated that swift EFCs can be achieved by rational modulation of the ICT effect in such D-A conjugated polymers.