Metallophilicity-Induced Clusterization: Single-Component White-Light Clusteroluminescence with Stimulus Response

Materials showing metallophilic interactions continue to attract considerable theoretical and experimental attention largely because of their unusual and unanticipated photophysical behavior as well as their unique stimuli-responsive behavior in an aggregate or solid state. Metallophilic interactions are mostly found between metals with either identical (d10–d10) or different (s2–d8, d8–d10) configurations. Among various metallophilic interactions, aurophilic interactions (Au⋯Au) are well-known and widely reported. In this study, a new phosphorescent gold(I) complex, [(CF3Ph)3PAuC≡CPh] (TPPGPA) was reported. The crystal structure of TPPGPA demonstrated the formation of trimers caused by intermolecular aurophilic interactions. These trimeric crystals showed an efficient and nearly pure white-light emission with Commission Internationale de L’Eclairage 1931 chromaticity coordinates of (0.33, 0.34) at ambient conditions. Moreover, TPPGPA displayed fascinating mechanochromic and thermochromic luminescence properties in the crystalline state. The application of TPPGPA in temperature-responsive white-light illumination was also successfully demonstrated. The molecular packing and temperature-dependent modulation of the aurophilic interactions were subtly taken as a functional relationship of the experimental correlation with emission wavelength and intensity. It is anticipated that the present results will provide new insights into aurophilic interactions and provide a molecular design strategy for the construction of intelligent and stimuli-responsive gold(I) complex-based luminescent materials.