Luminescent Eu-containing copolymers were synthesized through the copolymerization
of Eu−complex monomers containing β-diketones with methyl methacrylate and characterized by FT-IR, UV−vis, XPS, GPC, TGA, and DSC. All these Eu copolymers are fully soluble
in common organic solvents and can be cast into transparent, uniform, thin films with good
mechanical flexibility and thermal stability. The Eu−copolymer luminophores exhibited
intense red light at 615 nm under UV excitation at room temperature, which is attributed
to the 5D0→7F2 transition of Eu(III) ions. The luminescence intensities, lifetimes and
monochromaticities, η(5D0→7F2/5D0→7F1), of the Eu−copolymers are much higher than that
of the corresponding Eu−complex monomers as well as Eu−complex/PMMA blends. Energy
transfer processes and microenvironment effects were found to contribute to the improvement
of the luminescence properties of the Eu−copolymers. A study of the dependence of emission
intensities of the Eu−copolymers on the Eu content showed that the emission intensities
increased nearly linearly with increasing Eu content, and no significant emission concentration quenching phenomenon was observed at the Eu content of 0−6.38 mol %. This indicates
that the Eu−complex units in the Eu−copolymers are very uniformly bonded to the polymer
chain, which is in good agreement with the result of polymer structure analysis.
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