Fusion of aggregation-induced emission and photochromics for promising photoresponsive smart materials

Abstract

Photochromic materials have been drawing considerable attention owing to their potential applications including optical devices, logic gates, data recording and storage, and chemosensors. However, most conventional photochromic compounds usually suffer from aggregation-caused quenching (ACQ), and the solid or aggregate state is often required for practical applications. The introduction of the aggregation-induced emission (AIE) property into photochromic systems not only relieves the limitation posed by the ACQ phenomenon, but also endows photochromic systems with more fascinating fluorescence properties. Therefore, novel classes of AIE-active photochromic materials have been reported and considerable efforts have been continuously devoted towards improving their functions and performances for matching the requirements of practical applications. This review systematically describes recent progresses made in the AIE-active photochromic materials with respect to molecular structures, material morphologies, and practical applications, while the principle of molecular design and mechanism of performance are also covered. Moreover, the challenges, emerging fields, development tendency, and some perspectives for AIE-active photochromic materials are discussed and presented.