Differentiated Intra-Ligand Charge Transfer Boosting Multicolor Responsive MOF Heterostructures as Robust Anti-Counterfeiting Labels

Metal–organic framework (MOF) heterostructures with hybrid architectures and abundant functional sites possess great potential applications in advanced information security, yet still suffer from the harsh stimuli mechanisms with restrained emission control. Herein, the differentiated design strategy on intra-ligand charge transfer is first reported to realize smart-responsive multicolor MOF heterostructures as robust anticounterfeiting labels. Designed similar MOF blocks with the differentiated intra-ligand charge transfer are integrated via time-dependent epitaxial growth to form multicolor MOF heterostructures. Different numbers of electron-donating groups in MOF blocks offer distinct space regulation on the torsion of charge transfer ligands, which trigger the diverse responsive emissions under the same mild stimuli, thus generating multiple tunable color patterns in heterostructures. These spatial-resolved MOF heterostructures with stable multicolor responsive modes permit the encoding of fingerprint information, which further functions as robust anti-counterfeiting labels with high-security convert states. These results offer a promising route for the function-oriented exploitation of smart-responsive MOF heterosystems for advanced information anticounterfeiting.