From a Molecular Toolbox to a Toolbox for Photoswitchable Fluorescent Polymeric Nanoparticles 

Maolin Yu, Peisheng Zhang, Baiju P. Krishnan, Hong Wang, Yong Gao,* Shu Chen,  Rongjin Zeng, Jiaxi Cui,* and Jian Chen* 

Switchable organic fuorescent materials are attracting much interest in many felds including fexible display, information storage, anti-counterfeit, and bioimaging, due to their prominent properties and relatively low cost. Herein, a class of novel photoswitchable fuorescent polymeric nanoparticles (PFPNs) toolbox that shows switchable full-colored emission including white light is described. This nanoparticles toolbox consists of a series of reversibly photo-switchable and non-PFPNs with red, green, and blue fuorescence, and is built up from three primary fuorescent dyes and a photochromic diarylethene molecule, through a facile one-pot miniemulsion method. The as-prepared PFPNs display the merits of high fuorescence resonance energy transfer effciency and fuorescence quantum yield, rapid responsiveness, prominent photoreversibility, and brilliant long-term fuorescence stability (≈6 weeks). They enable switchable emission between white light and any visible color on-demand in both solution and flm states. Their potential in complex fuorescent encryption and photoswitchable white light-emitting diode is described and its great potential in anti-counterfeiting technology, data encryption, and the next generation of optoelectronic materials is foreseen.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adfm.201804759 

Adv. Funct. Mater. 2018, 1804759