Light-emitting self-assembled metallacages

Jun Zhao; Zhixuan Zhou; Guangfeng Li; Peter J Stang; Xuzhou Yan

doi:10.1093/nsr/nwab045

Light-emitting self-assembled metallacages

Natl Sci Rev. 2021 Mar 17;8(6):nwab045. doi: 10.1093/nsr/nwab045. eCollection 2021 Jun.

Authors

Jun Zhao¹, Zhixuan Zhou², Guangfeng Li¹, Peter J Stang², Xuzhou Yan¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Frontiers Science Center for Transformative Molecules, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China.
² Department of Chemistry, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA.

Abstract

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.

Keywords: aggregation-induced emission; coordination-driven self-assembly; metallacages; organometallic materials; supramolecular coordination complexes.