Mechanoluminescence of metal complexes: Progress and applications

Abstract

Mechanoluminescence (ML) is a light emission phenomenon caused by mechanical force on a substance. Recently, metal complexes mechanoluminescence materials are attracting widespread attention owing to their distinctive optical emission properties, which create exciting opportunities in various fields, such as stress sensing, anti-counterfeiting, structural health monitoring, medical health monitoring, structure detection and other fields. In this review, we summarized the recent progress of metal complex mechanoluminescence materials, including lanthanide metal complexes and transition metal complexes. In addition, the underlying mechanoluminescence mechanisms, design principles of mechanoluminescence, detailed photophysical behaviors, and their potential applications have been discussed. This review will provide inspiration and guidelines for constructing metal complexes mechanoluminescence materials and expanding their potential applications in stress sensing, structure detection and so on.

Keywords

mechanoluminescence (ML) / metal complexes / piezoelectric properties / non-centrosymmetric / structure detection

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