Issue 8, 2016

Using the isotope effect to probe an aggregation induced emission mechanism: theoretical prediction and experimental validation

Abstract

Aggregation-induced emission (AIE) has become a hot topic for a variety of potential applications, but the understanding of its working mechanism is still under scrutiny. Herein, we proposed the use of the isotope effect (IE) to identify the AIE mechanism: under the restriction of an internal motion mechanism, the IE is pronouncedly different in excited-state decay rates when contrasting AIE luminogens (AIEgens) and non-AIEgens in theoretical calculations. For the complete deuteration of AIEgens, the IE of nonradiative decay rate in solution (<−10%) is much weaker than that (−65% to −95%) in aggregate, because the former stems from the overall results of competitive vibronic coupling and the severe mixing of low-frequency modes while the latter mainly comes from the vibronic coupling only. The experimental results confirm the isotopic “jump” behaviors in AIEgens well. However, non-AIEgens exhibit equivalent IEs (−40% to −90%) in both solution and solid phases. Further partial deuteration schemes for the 6-ring AIE analogues show positional dependence.

Graphical abstract: Using the isotope effect to probe an aggregation induced emission mechanism: theoretical prediction and experimental validation

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
23 Feb 2016
Accepted
09 May 2016
First published
11 May 2016
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY license

Chem. Sci., 2016,7, 5573-5580

Using the isotope effect to probe an aggregation induced emission mechanism: theoretical prediction and experimental validation

T. Zhang, Q. Peng, C. Quan, H. Nie, Y. Niu, Y. Xie, Z. Zhao, B. Z. Tang and Z. Shuai, Chem. Sci., 2016, 7, 5573 DOI: 10.1039/C6SC00839A

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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