Abstract
The conventional energy transfer pathway in organic lanthanide complexes is purported to be from the excited singlet state of the chromophore to the triplet state and subsequently directly to the emitting state of the trivalent lanthanide ion. In this work, we found that the energy transfer occurs from the triplet state to the nearest energy level, instead of directly to the emitting state of the lanthanide ion. The triplet decay rate for different lanthanide ions follows an energy gap law from the triplet level to the receiving level of the lanthanide ion. Three different categories of complexes were synthesized and inspected using different techniques, demonstrating the universality of our findings. This work renews the insights to conventional findings, highlighting the importance of the energy gap between the triplet state and the nearest lanthanide energy level in optimization of light harvesting. The rationale of ligand design of chromophores should be reconsidered, leading to various applications of lanthanide complexes with enhanced quantum yield and brightness.