The
construction of afterglow materials with full-color tunable
emissions is attractive but still a challenging task. Herein, a host–guest
doping strategy was proposed to produce afterglow materials with an
emission-color span of almost 210 nm (from blue to deep red) by heat
treating the aqueous mixture of arylboronic acids and boric acid (BA).
In-depth structural, photophysical, and theoretical studies revealed
that the heat treatment process resulted in the dehydration of BA
and the formation of a glassy state host, and arylboronic acids were
loaded as guest molecules through H-bonds and covalent bonds with
BA. The afterglow originated from arylboronic acids, and the afterglow
color of products was related to their degree of conjugation of aromatic
groups. The host–guest doping strategy significantly improved
the photophysical performances of arylboronic acids, achieving a photoluminescence
quantum yield as high as 81.7% and an emission lifetime of 2.90 s
(afterglow >22 s). Triple information encryption based on emission
lifetime and color-encoding was also achieved, demonstrating their
commercial potential for use in anticounterfeiting and information
storage.