Day‐Long Persistent Luminescence in Intrinsically Integrated Donor‐Acceptor Carbon Dots Enabled by Defect‐Mediated Charge Trapping

Abstract

ABSTRACT Long‐persistent luminescence (LPL) materials capable of storing and releasing optical energy over extended timescales are highly desirable for next‐generation photonic technologies, yet structurally stable integrated donor‐acceptor (D‐A) systems capable of day‐scale, color‐tunable LPL remain elusive. Here, we report intrinsically integrated D‐A carbon dots exhibiting continuously tunable LPL from deep blue to yellow‐green, featuring day‐scale persistence of up to 36 h and a naked‐eye visible afterglow exceeding 4 h. Structurally, nitrogen‐doped carbon‐core donor domains are covalently coupled with arylboronic acid derived acceptor moieties through B─N linkages, forming an integrated D‐A framework enriched with intrinsic defect‐related trap states. Upon photoexcitation, intraparticle charge transfer (CT) generates long‐lived charge‐separated states, some of which are stabilized by intrinsic traps. Subsequent thermally activated detrapping releases the stored carriers and drives charge recombination, ultimately giving rise to day‐scale LPL. Furthermore, modulation of the acceptor electronic structure regulates the energy of the emissive CT state, enabling rationally tunable multicolor LPL. Benefiting from its day‐scale persistence and continuously tunable multicolor emission, this system enables potential applications in high‐resolution displays, dynamic anti‐counterfeiting, and intelligent information encryption. More importantly, this work establishes an intrinsically integrated D‐A‐trap design principle for ultralong LPL and a rational acceptor‐engineering strategy for multicolor persistent luminescence.