A green-synthesized phosphorescent carbon dot composite for multilevel anti-counterfeiting
Wenjie Jiang, Lan Liu, Yueyue Wu, Peng Zhang, Feiyang Li, Juqing Liu, Jianfeng Zhao, Fengwei Huo, Qiang Zhao, Wei Huang
Abstract
Room temperature phosphorescent (RTP) materials are rising and gaining considerable attention due to their special photo-capture-release ability. Herein, a kind of environmentally friendly RTP composite was devised by microwaving a mixture of carbon dots, boric acid, and urea, in the presence of covalent bonds and hydrogen bonds between each of the components. The resultant RTP material showed ultra-long phosphorescence lifetime up to 1005.6 ms with an outstanding afterglow as long as 9.0 s. Moreover, this afterglow feature with moisture sensitive behavior was explored to achieve multilevel anti-counterfeiting, with the function of complex decryption of encrypted secret information under multiple stimuli. Our results provide a green strategy for scalable synthesis of carbon-based RTP materials, and extend their application scope to high level information security.