Effective photosensitizers are highly desirable in many applications, such as photodynamic therapy, photocatalytic organic waste decomposition, and synthetic chemistry. Herein, we demonstrate polymerization-enhanced photosensitization, in which conjugated-polymer-based photosensitizers show much higher efficiency in singlet oxygen (¹O₂) production than their small-molecule analogs. Based on small-molecule photosensitizers SM1–SM4 with long wavelength emission, four conjugated polymer photosensitizers, CP1–CP4, were prepared. Interestingly, the conjugated polymer photosensitizers CP1–CP4 showed 5.06-, 5.07-, 1.73-, and 3.42-fold higher ¹O₂ generation efficiency than SM1–SM4, respectively. The improved intersystem crossing process from the singlet excitation states to the triplet excitation states and improved light-harvesting ability are essential to the enhancement of ¹O₂ generation efficiency. To illustrate the advantages of conjugated polymer photosensitizers on various applications, we demonstrate the superior performance of CP1 by using photoinduced organic waste decomposition, photoinduced organic oxidation reaction, and photodynamic cancer therapy as examples.

在许多应用中，非常需要有效的光敏剂，例如光动力疗法，光催化有机废物分解和合成化学。在这里，我们展示了聚合增强的光敏作用，其中基于共轭聚合物的光敏剂在单线态氧（¹ O ₂）生产中比其小分子类似物具有更高的效率。基于长波长发射的小分子光敏剂SM1-SM4，制备了四种共轭聚合物光敏剂CP1-CP4。有趣的是，共轭聚合物光敏剂CP1-CP4的¹ O ₂高5.06倍，5.07倍，1.73倍和3.42倍。发电效率分别高于SM1-SM4。从单重态激发态到三重态激发态的改进的系统间交叉过程和改进的光收集能力对于提高¹ O ₂产生效率是必不可少的。为了说明共轭聚合物光敏剂在各种应用中的优势，我们以光诱导的有机废物分解，光诱导的有机氧化反应和光动力癌症治疗为例，展示了CP1的卓越性能。