Colorful variation of tetraphenylethene derivatives in the solid state

Abstract

Stimuli-responsive chromic materials respond sensitively to mechanical, thermal, chemical vapor, and light stimuli. These responses are exhibited as mechanochromism, mechanoluminesence, thermochromism, vapochromism, photochromism and excitation wavelength dependent (Ex-De) luminescence, etc. As one of the most favourable aggregation induced emission luminogens with a twisted molecular conformation, the tetraphenylethene (TPE) scaffold has been widely used in the design of stimuli-responsive materials. This review provides a summary of the stimuli-responsive molecular design strategy, photophysical properties and application of these TPE-based molecular systems. The correlation between stimuli-responsive properties and different molecular structures, conformations and crystal packing modes is also discussed. The progress of these TPE-based stimuli-responsive materials offers a more comprehensive understanding of stimuli-responsive material design and provides helpful suggestions for future research.