Organic luminescent materials have great impact on society development and people’s daily life. The exploration and utilization of luminescence and luminescent materials can date back to half a century years ago. With in-depth understanding on the photophysical mechanism and unceasing progress of synthetic chemistry, diverse luminescent materials and light-emitting devices have been developed and utilized, evidenced by the Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded for “the discovery and development of green fluorescent protein (2008)” and “the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy (2014)”.

Most conventional organic luminophores are weakly emissive in the aggregate state, suffered from the aggregation-caused quenching (ACQ) effect. However, aggregation-induced emission (AIE) syst...[ Read more ]

Organic luminescent materials have great impact on society development and people’s daily life. The exploration and utilization of luminescence and luminescent materials can date back to half a century years ago. With in-depth understanding on the photophysical mechanism and unceasing progress of synthetic chemistry, diverse luminescent materials and light-emitting devices have been developed and utilized, evidenced by the Nobel Prize in Chemistry awarded for “the discovery and development of green fluorescent protein (2008)” and “the development of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy (2014)”.

Most conventional organic luminophores are weakly emissive in the aggregate state, suffered from the aggregation-caused quenching (ACQ) effect. However, aggregation-induced emission (AIE) systems that display weak emission in the solution state yet strong emission upon aggregated, can solve the ACQ problem. Especially, the noncovalent interactions, though various, are found to play an important role in building desired AIE feature. And extensive applications have been realized ranging from optoelectronics and chemical sensors, to bioimaging and photonic drugs.

Inspired by the unique merits of anion-π interactions in constructing AIE characteristic and biological applications, we achieved an AIE photosensitizer with ultrahigh ¹O₂ generation efficiency. Time-dependent fluorescence-guided photodynamic therapy was realized for the first time. Further, a series of five-membered azaheterocyclic AIE luminogens with anion-π interactions were generated via a highly efficient photoreaction under mild conditions. Compared to the well-developed single-component systems, multi-component aggregate study is still in its infancy. Taking advantage of the cocrystal engineering, we obtained two-component aggregate systems. Except for modulating fluorescence behaviour, photothermal performance was realized as well.