Recently,
stimuli-responsive materials have attracted great attention,
while most of them respond to single or two stimuli. Thus, it is essential
to design multifunctional stimuli-responsive materials and develop
their applications. The strategy that constructing high-dimensional
coordination polymers facilitates the application scope of a viologen-based
photochromic system is put forward and confirmed for the first time.
Herein, a novel multistimuli-responsive viologen-based Zn-MOF with
a two-dimensional framework has been successfully designed and synthesized.
Complex 1 exhibits chromic behavior under a variety of
external stimuli such as 365 nm UV, X-rays, heat, electricity, and
ethylamine. More interestingly, the crystal state of complex 1 displays dual fluorescence and room-temperature phosphorescence
(RTP) emission and emits a yellow afterglow when turning off the UV
lamp. In addition, Eu(III)-functionalized hybrids, Eu
3+
@Zn-MOF, were prepared by
coordinated postsynthetic modification based on viologen complexes
for the first time. The sample of Eu
3+
@Zn-MOF inherits the photochromic characteristics
of the viologen complexes and gives the distinctive fluorescence of
the europium ions. Based on the multicolor switching of 1 and Eu
3+
@Zn-MOF, their possible practical utilization was successfully developed
in the fields of inkless, erasable print media, electrochromic information
tag printing, information encryption, and anticounterfeiting.