Abstract
Highly luminescent Eu‐containing copolymers were synthesized through the copolymerization of Eu‐complex monomer featuring TTA and 5‐acryloxyethoxymethyl‐8‐hydroxyquinoline with MMA, and characterized by FT‐IR, UV–Vis, GPC, TGA, and DSC. The results indicated that the copolymers have not only a good solubility, thermal stability, and high glass transition temperatures, but also an intense red emission at 612 nm, corresponding to the ^5^D~0~ → ^7^F~2~ transition of Eu(III) ions under UV excitation. Compared with the Eu‐complex monomer, the Eu‐copolymers exhibited much higher luminescence lifetimes and efficiencies. Moreover, the luminescence intensities of the copolymers were much higher than those of the Eu‐complex/poly(methyl methacrylate) blend system at the same Eu content, and increased nearly linearly with an increase in the Eu content within 5.33 wt.‐%, and no significant concentration quenching phenomenon was observed at the Eu content up to 10.72 wt.‐%. In the blend system, however, the linear relationship between the luminescence intensity and Eu content was observed within 3.30 wt.‐%, and then the blend system showed typical emission concentration quenching on further increase in the Eu content. The improvement of the luminescence properties for the copolymers may be attributed to the special microenvironment, in which the Eu‐complex units are uniformly bonded to and surrounded by the polymer chain. These excellent photoluminescence properties may enable the novel copolymers to be used as pure red‐emitting materials.
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