Metal-free organic phosphorescence materials are of imperious demands in optoelectronics and bioelectronics. However, it is still a formidable challenge to develop a material with simultaneous efficiency and lifetime enhancement under ambient conditions. In this study, we design and synthesize a new class of high efficient ultralong organic phosphorescence (UOP) materials through self-assembly of melamine and aromatic acids in aqueous media. A supramolecular framework can be formed via multiple intermolecular interactions, building a rigid environment to lock the molecules firmly in a three-dimensional network, which not only effectively limits the nonradiative decay of the triplet excitons but also promotes the intersystem crossing. Thus, the supermolecules we designed synchronously achieve an ultralong emission lifetime of up to 1.91 s and a high phosphorescence quantum efficiency of 24.3% under ambient conditions. To the best of our knowledge, this is the best performance of UOP materials with simultaneous efficiency and lifetime enhancement. Furthermore, it is successfully applied in a barcode identification in darkness. This result not only paves the way toward high efficient UOP materials but also expands their applications.

Polymer‐based materials have evoked increasing attention in the research field of room‐temperature phosphorescence (RTP) because they can not only possess fantastic properties such as good flexibility, easy processing, low cost, high thermal stability and so forth, but also serve as rigid matrices to suppress the nonradiative decay process and thus contribute to phosphorescence emission at room temperature. This Review outlines the development of RTP in organic polymer‐based materials from the perspective of nondoped and doped polymer systems, containing the detailed photophysical properties, luminescent mechanisms and their applications. The conclusion and outlook are presented to point out the advances and challenges for further study of polymer‐based metal‐free RTP materials.

Long-lived room temperature phosphorescence (LRTP) is an attractive optical phenomenon in organic electronics and photonics. Despite the rapid advance, it is still a formidable challenge to explore a universal approach to obtain LRTP in amorphous polymers. Based on the traditional polyethylene derivatives, we herein present a facile and concise chemical strategy to achieve ultralong phosphorescence in polymers by ionic bonding cross-linking. Impressively, a record LRTP lifetime of up to 2.1 s in amorphous polymers under ambient conditions is set up. Moreover, multicolor long-lived phosphorescent emission can be procured by tuning the excitation wavelength in single-component polymer materials. These results outline a fundamental principle for the construction of polymer materials with LRTP, endowing traditional polymers with fresh features for potential applications.

Ultralong organic phosphorescence (UOP) based on metal-free porous materials is rarely reported owing to rapid nonradiative transition under ambient conditions. In this study, hydrogen-bonded organic aromatic frameworks (HOAFs) with different pore sizes were constructed through strong intralayer π-π interactions to enable ultralong phosphorescence in metal-free porous materials under ambient conditions for the first time. Impressively, yellow UOP with a lifetime of 79.8 ms observed for PhTCz-1 lasted for several seconds upon ceasing the excitation. For PhTCz-2 and PhTCz-3, on account of oxygen-dependent phosphorescence quenching, UOP could only be visualized in N , thus demonstrating the potential of phosphorescent porous materials for oxygen sensing. This result not only outlines a principle for the design of new HOFs with high thermal stability, but also expands the scope of metal-free luminescent materials with the property of UOP.

Luminogens with colorful ultralong organic phosphorescence (UOP) are in high demand because of various potential applications in optoelectronics. Herein, we report a concise approach to tune UOP based on the same chromophores of carbazole and phthalimide units through alkyl engineering. With flexible alkyl increase, UOP emission colors can be controllably tuned from green to orange along with lifetime variation. Furthermore, these phosphors were endowed with unexpected visible-light excitation, mechanochromism, and mechanoluminescence properties simultaneously. Additionally, colorful UOP with diverse emission lifetime was first applied to the 4D code for information encryption. These findings will open a door to explore multifunctional organic phosphorescence materials and expand their potential applications.