Luminescent carbazole-based electron donor–acceptor rings: synthesis, structure, and application

Abstract

Herein, three novel electron donor–acceptor rings (DARs) were synthesized, in which four methoxy groups were introduced into DARc to study the influence of substituents on their properties. Their photoluminescence was studied and all exhibited stunning and unique fluorescence emission. Anomalously, an unexpected fluorescence blue shift of DARc was then discovered, in which the electron-donating methoxy group moved the emission to a higher energy region. Subsequently, the electrochemiluminescence (ECL) properties of DARc were further investigated, in which strong and stable cathodic ECL emissions were discovered. Finally, to evaluate the practicality of the above luminescence properties, DARc was selected as an electrode luminescent material to construct an ECL sensor for dopamine detection. This work provides new insights into the structure–property correlations of electron donor–acceptor architectures and opens new prospects for designing highly efficient donor–acceptor structure-based ECL materials.