Glycothermally Synthesized Carbon Dots with Narrow-Bandwidth and Color-Tunable Solvatochromic Fluorescence for Wide-Color-Gamut Displays

Fluorescent carbon dots (CDs) represent a promising eco-friendly next-generation phosphor. However, most CDs exhibit broad photoluminescence (PL) spectra [full width at half-maximum (fwhm) over 60 nm]; few works on CDs with sharp PL spectra (fwhm less than 40 nm) have been reported. In addition, their syntheses and color tuning require harsh conditions of high temperatures, long reaction times, and high pressures with catalysts. Here, we successfully prepared narrow-bandwidth emissive CDs (fwhm of 27-40 nm) from phloroglucinol in a glycol solvent of 1,2-pentanediol at temperatures as low as 180 °C for a reaction duration of as short as 6 h under ambient conditions without any catalysts via an open reaction system in which dehydration and condensation reactions among phloroglucinol molecules were enhanced. We shifted the emission peak from 463 to 511 nm by selecting seven kinds of solvents with different polarities, that is, emission colors could be tuned from blue to green by taking advantage of fluorescence solvatochromism. The CD-dispersed polymer films showed a similar solvatochromic behavior and sharp PL spectra, verifying the feasibility of applying the CDs to displays with a wide color gamut.