Pressure-Induced Enhancement of Room-Temperature Phosphorescence in Heavy Halogen-Containing Imide and Polyimide

To investigate the correlation between the aggregated state and photoluminescence (PL) mechanism of dual fluorescent (FL) and phosphorescent (PH) polyimides (PIs), the photophysical processes of FL-type BP-PI, PH-type DBrBP-PI, and their corresponding imide model compounds (BP-MC and DBrBP-MC) dispersed in poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) films were analyzed at elevated pressures up to 8 GPa using a diamond anvil cell. Dibromo-substituted DBrBP-MC demonstrated a shorter wavelength absorption than BP-MC owing to the larger dihedral angle in the biphenyl moiety. Both MCs exhibited red-shifts in their absorption spectra with increasing pressure, indicating planarization occurred at the biphenyl moieties associated with the compression of the free volume in PMMA. The PL intensity of BP-MC increased with increasing pressure, while its quantum yield (ΦPL) decreased sharply due to the enhanced energy transfer via the Förster mechanism. In contrast, the PH quantum yield (ΦPH) of DBrBP-MC monotonically increased at lower pressures, while it showed excitation wavelength-dependent behaviors at higher pressures: ΦPH remained unchanged under excitation at 340 nm but gradually increased under excitation at 365 nm. This fact suggests that, at higher pressures, 365 nm excitation promoted intersystem crossing (ISC) from excited singlet states at higher energy levels. Using this phenomenon, a significant pressure-induced PH enhancement (PIPE) was observed for DBrBP-PI up to 0.9 GPa upon excitation at 365 nm, which is a rare phenomenon for organic polymers. This study indicates that even in colorless and optically transparent amorphous polymers, an enhancement of PH due to restricted molecular motion and intensified ISC outweighs the deactivation due to intermolecular energy transfer under certain pressures, leading to an increase in ΦPH.

Characteristic changes in the structures and properties of polyimides induced by very high pressures up to 8 GPa

Various in situ measurement techniques have been applied to investigate changes in the three-dimensional structures and the properties of fully aromatic polymers (mainly aromatic polyimides: PIs) generated at very high pressures up to 8 GPa. In particular, significant changes occurred in the ordered structures, aggregation states, electronic structures, and intermolecular interactions in the repeating units of the PI molecular chains and were observed by applying pressure with a high-pressure optical cell (up to 0.4 GPa, ca. 4000 atm) or a diamond anvil cell (DAC, up to 8.0 GPa, ca. 80,000 atm). In addition, the structural changes in the PI molecular chain repeating units and interchain distances induced by the ultrahigh pressures were observed with wide-angle X-ray diffraction, and they were compared and contrasted with optical absorption, fluorescent and phosphorescent emission spectra, infrared absorption spectra, and refractive indexes observed under the same conditions. These findings obtained at very high pressures provide molecular design guidelines for new PI materials with novel optical, electronic, and thermal functionalities that are not easy to achieve under ambient conditions.