Exothermic Dexter-like triplet-triplet energy transfer (TTET) from quantum dots (QDs) to surface-anchored molecules has markedly expanded the application of QDs to photochemical synthesis, photoredox catalysis, singlet oxygen photogeneration, as well as photochemical upconversion. By carefully controlling the triplet energy gap of QDs and surface-anchored molecules, the excitons harvested by the molecular triplets can thermally repopulate the QDs excited state through endothermic reverse-TTET (rTTET). This results in thermally-activated delayed photoluminescence (TADPL) which is potentially beneficial for generating long-lived triplet excitons in QDs. Over the past few years, rTTET has been evaluated in hybrid materials composed of CdSe-QDs and Pb-based perovskite QDs. In this work, we demonstrate that excitons within InP QDs can be extracted using naphthoic acid surface-anchored ligands through a Dexter-like TTET process. The harvested and stored excitons within the surface-anchored molecular triplets thermally repopulate the InP QD excited state through endothermic rTTET generating efficient TADPL. The observed TADPL properties are tuned by variation of temperature and the nature of the surface-anchored molecular triplet.

Thermally-activated delayed photoluminescence from InP quantum dot/naphthoic acid constructs

ACS Spring 2022

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