Hyperbranching-Enhanced-Emission Effect Discovered in Hyperbranched Poly(4-(cyanomethyl)phenyl methacrylate)

Laiping Fang; Chushu Huang; Ghulam Shabir; Jinlun Liang; Zhaoyang Liu; Hefeng Zhang

doi:10.1021/acsmacrolett.9b00864

Hyperbranching-Enhanced-Emission Effect Discovered in Hyperbranched Poly(4-(cyanomethyl)phenyl methacrylate)

ACS Macro Lett. 2019 Dec 17;8(12):1605-1610. doi: 10.1021/acsmacrolett.9b00864. Epub 2019 Nov 22.

Authors

Laiping Fang¹, Chushu Huang¹, Ghulam Shabir², Jinlun Liang¹, Zhaoyang Liu¹, Hefeng Zhang^{1

3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry and Key Laboratory for Preparation and Application of Ordered Structural Materials of Guangdong Province, College of Science, Shantou University, Shantou 515063, China.
² Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Comprehensive Building, Shantou University Medical College, Xinling Road 22, Shantou 515041, P. R. China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Luminescent Materials and Devices, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, P. R. China.
⁴ Guangdong Provincial Laboratory of Chemistry and Fine Chemical Engineering, Shantou 515063, P. R. China.

PMID: 35619399
DOI: 10.1021/acsmacrolett.9b00864

Abstract

To disclose the effect of architecture over fluorescence behaviors of polymers, linear and hyperbranched poly(4-(cyanomethyl)phenyl methacrylate)s (PCPMAs) were synthesized by using atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP). Compared to linear PCPMAs with weakly AIE (AIE: aggregation-induced-emission) characteristics and small-molecule analogues of 4-(cyanomethyl)phenyl isobutyrate (CPB) with ACQ (ACQ: aggregation-caused-quenching) behaviors, hyperbranched PCPMA showed dramatically stronger fluorescence at both solution and solid states and more significant AIE characteristics, which were further enhanced by increasing the branching degree, indicating a significant hyperbranching-enhanced-emission effect (HEE). The HEE effect was attributed to the strong promotion of hyperbranched architecture over the formation of a nitrile group cluster with through-space conjugation (TSC). The HEE effect provided a promising methodology to construct efficient nontraditional fluorescent polymers without large-conjugated, rigid, and planar emitter groups.