Light-emitting self-assembled metallacages

Coordination-driven self-assembly of metallacages has garnered significant interest because of their 3D layout and cavity-cored nature. The well-defined, highly tunable metallacage structures render them particularly attractive for investigating the properties of luminophores, as well as for inducing novel photophysical characters that enable widespread applications. In this review, we summarize the recent advances in synthetic methodologies for light-emitting metallacages, and highlight some representative applications of these metallacages. In particular, we focus on the favorable photophysical properties—including high luminescence efficiency in various physical states, good modularity in photophysical properties and stimulus responsiveness—that have resulted from incorporating ligands displaying aggregation-induced emission (AIE) into metallacages. These features show that the synergy between carrying out coordination-driven self-assembly and using luminophores with novel photophysical characteristics like AIE could stimulate the development of supramolecular luminophores for applications in fields as diverse as sensing, biomedicine and catalysis.

Highly Efficient Aggregation-Induced Electrochemiluminescence of Polyfluorene Derivative Nanoparticles Containing Tetraphenylethylene

The aggregation-induced electrochemiluminescence (AIECL) of polyfluorene derivative nanoparticles containing tetraphenylethylene (TPE) in aqueous media is reported in this work. The TPE unit limits the intramolecular free rotation of phenyl rings, as well as the π-π stacking interactions of molecules, which significantly enhances ECL signal of the polyfluorene nanoparticles. With co-reactants of tri-n-propylamine (TPrA) and S2O82-, the copolymer nanoparticles show visualized ECL emissions at both positive and negative potentials. The ECL efficiency of copolymer nanoparticles in solid state is 163% compared with that of standard ECL species, Ru(bpy)32+. And at negative potential, the ECL intensity of copolymer nanoparticles is even stronger with 6.5 times compared with that at positive potential. The ECL generation mechanisms are analyzed detailed by annihilation and co-reactant route transient ECL test (millisecond scale). This work provides a reference for the organic structure design for AIECL and shows promising potential in luminescent device and biological applications.

Highly efficient luminescent side-chain polymers with short-spacer attached tetraphenylethylene AIEgens via RAFT polymerization capable of naked eye explosive detection

The fluorescence quantum yield of side-chain AIE polymers was remarkably promoted just by shortening the linking spacer.

Experimental and DFT studies of disubstituted 2-(2-hydroxyphenyl)benzothiazole-based fluorophores synthesized by Suzuki coupling

Elucidating the effect of simultaneous disubstitution on the fluorescence of ESIPT dyes through experimental observation and theoretical calculation.

Efficient phenanthroimidazole-styryl-triphenylamine derivatives for blue OLEDs: a combined experimental and theoretical study

Blue emitting devices based on 2-(4′-9H-carbazol-9-yl)-[1,1′-styryl]-4-yl-1-benzylpiperidine-1H-phenanthro[9,10-d]imidazole (Cz-BPIS) exhibits blue emission with CIE coordinates of (0.16, 0.09), current density of 1.91 cd/A, power efficiency of 1.63 lm/W and external quantum efficiency of 2.61%.

Synthesis, characterization and aggregation induced emission properties of anthracene based conjugated molecules

A series of long alkyl chain substituted linear and branched conjugated anthracene derivatives have aggregation-induced emission properties and also show PFC behavior, which can be useful for optoelectronic applications.

Photophysics of GFP-related chromophores imposed by a scaffold design

In this paper, a rigid scaffold imposes the photophysics of chromophores with a benzylidene imidazolidinone core by mimicking the β-barrel structure of the green fluorescent protein (GFP) and its analogs.

Aggregation-induced emission of siloles

Aggregation-induced emission (AIE) is a unique and significant photophysical phenomenon that differs greatly from the commonly acknowledged aggregation-caused emission quenching observed for many π-conjugated planar chromophores. The mechanistic decipherment of the AIE phenomenon is of high importance for the advance of new AIE systems and exploitation of their potential applications. Propeller-like 2,3,4,5-tetraphenylsiloles are archetypal AIE-active luminogens, and have been adopted as a core part in the design of numerous luminescent materials with diverse functionalities. In this review article, we elucidate the impacts of substituents on the AIE activity and shed light on the structure-property relationship of siloles, with the aim of promoting the judicious design of AIE-active functional materials in the future. Recent representative advances of new silole-based functional materials and their potential applications are reviewed as well.

Rational design of aggregation-induced emission luminogen with weak electron donor-acceptor interaction to achieve highly efficient undoped bilayer OLEDs

In this work, two tailored luminogens (TPE-NB and TPE-PNPB) consisting of tetraphenylethene (TPE), diphenylamino, and dimesitylboryl as a π-conjugated linkage, electron donor, and electron acceptor, respectively, are synthesized and characterized. Their thermal stabilities, photophysical properties, solvachromism, fluorescence decays, electronic structures, electrochemical behaviors, and electroluminescence (EL) properties are investigated systematically, and the impacts of electron donor-acceptor (D-A) interaction on optoelectronic properties are discussed. Due to the presence of a TPE unit, both luminogens show aggregation-induced emission, but strong D-A interaction causes a decrease in emission efficiency and red-shifts in photoluminescence and EL emissions. The luminogen, TPE-PNPB, with a weak D-A interaction fluoresces strongly in solid film with a high fluorescence quantum yield of 94%. The trilayer OLED [ITO/NPB (60 nm)/TPE-PNPB (20 nm)/TPBi (40 nm)/LiF (1 nm)/Al (100 nm)] utilizing TPE-PNPB as a light emitter shows a peak luminance of 49 993 cd m(-2) and high EL efficiencies up to 15.7 cd A(-1), 12.9 lm W(-1), and 5.12%. The bilayer OLED [ITO/TPE-PNPB (80 nm)/TPBi (40 nm)/LiF (1 nm)/Al (100 nm)] adopting TPE-PNPB as a light emitter and hole transporter simultaneously affords even better EL efficiencies of 16.2 cd A(-1), 14.4 lm W(-1), and 5.35% in ambient air, revealing that TPE-PNPB is an eximious p-type light emitter.

Synthesis, structure, photoluminescence, and electroluminescence of siloles that contain planar fluorescent chromophores

Herein, a new series of siloles that were 2,5-substituted with planar fluorescent chromophores (PFCs), including fluorene, fluoranthene, naphthalene, pyrene, and anthracene, were synthesized and characterized. These compounds showed weak emission in the solution state, owing to active intramolecular rotation (IMR), but the synergistic effect from electronic coupling between the PFC and the silole ring compensated for the emission quenching by the IMR process to some extent, thereby affording higher emission efficiencies than those of 2,3,4,5-tetraphenylsiloles in solution. These new siloles showed enhanced emission efficiencies in the aggregated state. The electroluminescence (EL) color and efficiency of new siloles were sensitive towards the PFC. Siloles containing naphthalene moieties showed green EL emission, whilst those containing anthracene moieties showed orange EL emission. The siloles containing pyrene moieties exhibited yellow EL emission at 546 nm, with a peak luminance of 49000 cd cm(-2) and a high current efficiency of 9.1 cd A(-1).

An ESIPT fluorescent dye based on HBI with high quantum yield and large Stokes shift for selective detection of Cys

DPIN shows prominent ESIPT emission even in protic/polar solvents, and is further employed as a sensor for selective detection of Cys.

Phenyl ring dynamics in a tetraphenylethylene-bridged metal-organic framework: implications for the mechanism of aggregation-induced emission

Molecules that exhibit emission in the solid state, especially those known as aggregation-induced emission (AIE) chromophores, have found applications in areas as varied as light-emitting diodes and biological sensors. Despite numerous studies, the mechanism of fluorescence quenching in AIE chromophores is still not completely understood. To this end, much interest has focused on understanding the low-frequency vibrational dynamics of prototypical systems, such as tetraphenylethylene (TPE), in the hope that such studies would provide more general principles toward the design of new sensors and electronic materials. We hereby show that a perdeuterated TPE-based metal-organic framework (MOF) serves as an excellent platform for studying the low-energy vibrational modes of AIE-type chromophores. In particular, we use solid-state (2)H and (13)C NMR experiments to investigate the phenyl ring dynamics of TPE cores that are coordinatively trapped inside a MOF and find a phenyl ring flipping energy barrier of 43(6) kJ/mol. DFT calculations are then used to deconvolute the electronic and steric contributions to this flipping barrier. Finally, we couple the NMR and DFT studies with variable-temperature X-ray diffraction experiments to propose that both the ethylenic C═C bond twist and the torsion of the phenyl rings are important for quenching emission in TPE, but that the former may gate the latter. To conclude, we use these findings to propose a set of design criteria for the development of tunable turn-on porous sensors constructed from AIE-type molecules, particularly as applied to the design of new multifunctional MOFs.