Design and synthesis of near-IR luminescent mesoporous materials covalently linked with tris(8-hydroxyquinolinate)lanthanide(III) complexes

By using the bifunctional ligand, 8-hydroxyquinoline-functionalized organosilane (Q-Si), the new mesoporous material Q–MCM-41 covalently bonded with 8-hydroxyquinoline was synthesized. Through the ligand exchange reaction, the new near-infrared (NIR) luminescent mesoporous LnQ3–MCM-41 (Ln = Er, Nd, Yb) materials were prepared by linking the lanthanide quinolinate complexes to the ordered mesoporous Q–MCM-41 material. The LnQ3–MCM-41 materials were characterized by powder X-ray diffraction and N2 adsorption/desorption, and they all show the characteristic mesoporous structure of MCM-41 with highly uniform pore size distributions. Fluorescence spectra of these LnQ3–MCM-41 materials were recorded and the corresponding luminescence decay analyses were measured. After ligand-mediated excitation, all the emission spectra of the LnQ3–MCM-41 materials show the characteristic NIR-luminescence of the corresponding lanthanide ions via the intramolecular energy transfer from the ligands to the lanthanide ions. The good luminescent performances enable these NIR-luminescent mesoporous materials to have potential applications in optical amplification (operating at 1.3 or 1.5 μm) and laser systems, etc.