Luminescent materials with high efficiency, narrow emission bandwidth and long emission wavelength have attracted extensive attention in recent years. However, for novel luminescent carbon dots, it is still a major challenge to obtain these properties simultaneously. Here, this type of carbon dot was proposed using 1,4-diaminonaphthalene as the initial source. The carbon dots demonstrate strong orange emission with the highest quantum yield of 82% and an extremely narrow emission bandwidth of 30 nm. It is found that the orange emission of carbon dots is attributed to the high defect amounts including nitrogen and oxygen doping. The high carboxyl group content leads to a high efficiency and the uniform size distribution results in a narrow bandwidth. The carbon dots are used as the gain medium of a whispering gallery mode microcavity laser. A low excitation threshold of 12 kW cm⁻² and a high quality factor of ∼3600 can be obtained from the microcavity lasers. This work has provided a didactic example to develop high-quality long emission-wavelength carbon dots with strong emission and an ultra-narrow emission bandwidth, which makes it possible to expand the application of original and high-performance lasers or other optical devices.

Random lasers, which achieve light amplification through random light scattering in disordered laser gain medium, have found widespread applications in varieties of areas due to the convenient design of laser cavities. In this work, carbon dot fibers with superior fluorescence stability under a high temperature or high humidity environment are fabricated by using a single-step partial thermal decomposition method. Random lasers, which are used for multilevel anti-counterfeiting, are achieved from different types of carbon dot fibers by 370 nm excitation at room temperature. Multilevel anti-counterfeiting is realized by tuning the lasing spectra (between ∼428 and 560 nm) and threshold (between ∼2 and 25 mJ cm⁻²) at designated decomposition times and fiber diameters. It is extremely difficult to counterfeit lasing spectra and the specific laser threshold simultaneously. As a result, this will comprehensively improve system safety.

Red emissive random lasing at 612 nm was realized from a planar microcavity using CDs as the gain medium at room temperature. Simultaneously, the transformation of random lasing to Fabry–Perot lasing in the same laser cavity at 250 °C was observed.

Deep-blue (DB) emitters that feature high photoluminescence quantum yield (PLQY) and narrow spectral bandwidth are desired for a variety of optoelectronic applications, particularly for lighting, illumination, and lasing. Currently favored DB emitters constitute quantum dots comprising cadmium or lead and organic compounds derived from petroleum, but they suffer from toxicity and sustainability issues. Here, we report the solvothermal synthesis of DB-emitting carbon dots (DB-CDs) using bioderivable phloroglucinol as the sole starting material, which exhibit a peak emission wavelength of 403 nm, narrow spectral full width at half-maximum of 35 nm, and high PLQY of 61% in ethanol. The DB-CDs with a planar structure are demonstrated to comprise distinct graphene segments in a polyether-cross-link network, with the former functioning as the fluorophore. The application merit of the DB-CDs is exemplified by their implementation as the gain medium in a random laser device, which exhibits a threshold optical power density of 40.5 kW cm^-2. This study thus demonstrates a path toward efficient and sustainable deep-blue emitters, which can be exploited in practical applications.