Cellulose-based circularly polarized luminescence nanofilm with superior optical intensity and controllable direction

Shengzhe Jia; Bingbing Yang; Jiaxuan Tang; Jing Du; Jiayin Zhang; Yujiang Xie; Peng Liao; Weiwei Tang; Junbo Gong

doi:10.1016/j.carbpol.2025.123517

Cellulose-based circularly polarized luminescence nanofilm with superior optical intensity and controllable direction

Carbohydr Polym. 2025 Jun 15:358:123517. doi: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2025.123517. Epub 2025 Mar 18.

Authors

Shengzhe Jia¹, Bingbing Yang¹, Jiaxuan Tang¹, Jing Du², Jiayin Zhang¹, Yujiang Xie¹, Peng Liao¹, Weiwei Tang³, Junbo Gong⁴

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China.
² Department of Chemistry, Institute of Molecular Aggregation Science, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Molecular Optoelectronic Sciences, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China; Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry Science and Engineering, Tianjin 300072, China. Electronic address: wwtang@tju.edu.cn.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Chemical Engineering, School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China; Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry Science and Engineering, Tianjin 300072, China. Electronic address: junbo_gong@tju.edu.cn.

PMID: 40383577
DOI: 10.1016/j.carbpol.2025.123517

Abstract

Synthesizing the circularly polarized luminescent (CPL) assemblies with strong intensity and real-time handedness direction control requires an ingenious structure design, which is difficult in traditional optical materials. This work utilizes the self-assembled cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) as the chiral template and packages the luminophores into the platform, to design a kind of CPL nanofilm. By optimizing the photonic bandgap structure, it possesses a considerable CPL and superior mechanical flexibility, which makes it a candidate for the next generation of wearable sensing devices. Additionally, it displays the reversible optical response in the humidity- or ammonia gas-stimulus. Next, this work designs two CPL amplification strategies, divided into selective reflection design and optical pathway length optimization. The intensified dissymmetry factor (g_lum) has reached -1.39. Since, by simply tuning the sequence of two films, the handedness direction is successfully switched, with the inverted g_lum of approximately 0.4442. This dual-direction CPL intensity has preceded most cellulose-based chiral luminescent materials. Importantly, this optical design avoids the incorporation of external stimuli and disruption of the inner structure. At last, this photonic film with direction- and intensity-controllable is used in the photo-induced polymerization reaction and optical anti-counterfeiting areas.

Keywords: Cellulose nanocrystals; Chirality; Circularly polarized luminescence; Handedness control; Photonic bandgap.