Synthesis, characterization and aggregation induced emission properties of anthracene based conjugated molecules

Abstract

Aggregation induced emission-active branched and linear 9,10-distyrylanthracene derivatives with different length alkoxy chains have been designed, synthesized and the effect of chain length on the solid-state fluorescence properties systematically investigated. All the three anthracene derivatives possess typical aggregation induced emission (AIE) properties, i.e., they exhibit faint emission in their solutions, but intense emission in their aggregate states, as a result of the dominant nonradiative decay of free intramolecular torsion in the solution and also the restricted torsional motion from supramolecular interaction in the solid states. The results show that these materials exhibit not only AIE properties, but also observed were position and chain length dependent fluorescence properties. The shorter alkoxy chains were more red shifted than the longer ones and also different aggregation behaviours for branched and linear molecules were observed. This work demonstrates once again the accessibility of tuning the solid-state optical properties of organic fluorophores by combining the simple alternation of molecular chemical structures and the physical change of aggregate morphology under external stimuli.