Zeolitic imidazolate framework (ZIF) glasses represent a newly emerged class of melt-quenched glasses, characterized by their intrinsic nanoporous structure, good processability, and multifunctionalities such as gas separation and energy storage. However, creating photonic functionalities in Zn-based ZIF glasses remains elusive. Here we show a remarkable broadband white light-emitting behavior in a Zn-based ZIF glass, which can be enhanced by annealing. Furthermore, we discovered a sharp red shift upon increasing annealing temperature above the critical temperature of 1.07Tg, where Tg is the glass transition temperature, for a short duration of 30 min. Finally, we achieved a high absolute internal photoluminescence quantum yield of 12.2% upon annealing of ZIF glass at 1.13Tg. Based on the optimally annealed ZIF glass, we fabricated a white light-emitting diode (LED) with the luminous efficacy of 4.2 lm/W and high operational stability, retaining 74.1% of its initial luminous efficacy after 180 min of continuous operation. These results not only demonstrate the feasibility of utilizing ZIF glasses in LED applications but also mark a significant advancement in the development of durable, efficient, and multifunctional photonic materials.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2508.09552,
title = {Zeolitic imidazolate framework glasses emit white light},
author = {Zhencai Li and Zihao Wang and Huotian Zhang and Xuan Ge and Ivan Hung and Bozhao Yin and Fengming Cao and Pritam Banerjee and Tianzhao Xu and Lars R. Jensen and Joerg Jinschek and Morten M. Smedskjaer and Zhehong Gan and Laurent Calvez and Guoping Dong and Jianbei Qiu and Donghong Yu and Feng Gao and Haomiao Zhu and Yuanzheng Yue},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2508.09552},
year = {2025}
}