Aggregation-Induced Emission from Fluorophore-Quencher Dyads with Long-Lived Luminescence

J Phys Chem A. 2015 Aug 20;119(33):8854-9. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpca.5b06906. Epub 2015 Aug 10.

Abstract

Aggregation-induced emission (AIE) is an important photophysical phenomenon in molecular materials and has found broad applications in optoelectronics, bioimaging, and chemosensing. Currently, the majority of reported AIE-active molecules are based on either propeller-shaped rotamers or donor-acceptor molecules with strong intramolecular charge-transfer states. Here, we report a new design motif, where a fluorophore is covalently tethered to a quencher, to expand the scope of AIE-active materials. The fluorophore-quencher dyad (FQD) is nonemissive in solutions due to photoinduced electron-transfer quenching but becomes luminescent in the solid state. The intrinsic emission lifetimes are found to be within the microseconds domain at both room and low temperatures. We performed single-crystal X-ray diffraction measurement for each of the FQDs as well as theoretical calculations to account for the possible origin of the long-lived AIE. These FQDs represent a new class of AIE-active molecules with potential applications in organic optoelectronics.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Crystallography, X-Ray
  • Electron Transport
  • Fluorescent Dyes / chemistry*
  • Luminescence*
  • Microscopy, Fluorescence
  • Models, Molecular
  • Molecular Structure

Substances

  • Fluorescent Dyes