Rational Design of Circularly Polarized Luminescent Aggregation-Induced Emission Luminogens (AIEgens): Promoting the Dissymmetry Factor and Emission Efficiency Synchronously

Abstract

Development of circularly polarized luminescent (CPL) materials with strong emission and high dissymmetry factor of luminescence (glum) is highly desirable. A series of CPL-active aggregation-induced emission luminogens (AIEgens) have been successfully constructed by incorporating AIEgen dicyanodistyrylbenzene (DCS) into chiral molecule cholesterol. Benefiting from its typical AIE characteristic, DCS allows emission efficiency up to 73.7% in a condensed state. Furthermore, cholesterol units ensure forming chiral liquid crystal in syntax, and increasing the glum value of CPL from 7 × 10–4 for the amorphous state to 1.1 × 10–1 for the liquid crystal state. This approach paves a general avenue for addressing the major defect well: high glum always suffers from suppression of emission efficiency.