Terpyridine-Based Metal-Organic Cage with Enhanced Emission via Coordination-Induced Rigidity.

Realizing the regulation of photophysical properties by precisely controlling the molecular composition and configuration, thereby obtaining high-performance optical materials, remains of great significance. Due to the directionality and reversibility of the coordination bond, coordination-driven self-assembly endows the molecule with customized thermodynamically stable structures and desired properties. In this paper, a luminous metal-organic cage [Zn 12 L 6 ] ( S ) was elaborately designed and quantitatively synthesized by self-assembly of tetrapodal TQPP chromophore-containing terpyridine ligand L with Zn 2+ . Complex S possessed a rigid cage-like structure, which endows a higher fluorescence quantum efficiency both in solution (∼88%) and neat solid (16%) than the corresponding ligand L . Further, using complex S as the photoactive component, two light-emitting diodes (LEDs) were successfully fabricated and the emission of pure white light (CIE coordinates: 0.3341, 0.3300) was achieved. These results afford a method to obtain enhanced luminescence performance via the formation of rigid coordination-driven supramolecular architectures.