Chiral lanthanide lumino-glass for a circularly polarized light security device.

Artificial light plays an essential role in information technologies such as optical telecommunications, data storage, security features, and the display of information. Here, we show a chiral lanthanide lumino-glass with extra-large circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) for advanced photonic security device applications. The chiral lanthanide glass is composed of a europium complex with the chiral (+)-3-(trifluoroacetyl)camphor ligand and the achiral glass promoter tris(2,6-dimethoxyphenyl)phosphine oxide ligand. The glass phase transition behavior of the Eu(III) complex is characterized using differential scanning calorimetry. The transparent amorphous glass shows CPL with extra-large dissymmetry factor of g CPL  = 1.2. The brightness of the lumino-glass is one thousand times larger than that of Eu(III) luminophores embedded in polymer films of the same thickness at a Eu(III) concentration of 1 mM. The application of the chiral lanthanide lumino-glass in an advanced security paint is demonstrated.