Division of Chemistry and Biological Chemistry, School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Nanyang Technological University , 21 Nanyang Link, 637371, Singapore.
J Am Chem Soc. 2013 Apr 3;135(13):5175-82. doi: 10.1021/ja400456h. Epub 2013 Mar 25.
Facile tuning of photophysical properties is highly desirable for boosting the performance and versatility of photoluminescent materials. In an attempt to overcome the challenge of achieving the photoswitching of multicolor luminescence on unimolecular platforms, we here report a novel hierarchical self-assembly of a cyanostilbene-naphthalimide dyad as the realization of phototunable luminescence at the unimolecular level. The work takes advantage of the photoisomerization of the cyanostilbene moiety from the Z form to its E form, which causes a morphological disorder in the molecular self-assembly and gives rise to a dual fluorescent characteristic accompanied by a progressive luminescent color conversion from yellow to green and finally to blue. Such systems with convertible multicolor luminescence might exhibit application potentials for unimolecular selective imaging and labeling, as exemplified by the cell imaging studies presented in this work.
为了提高光致发光材料的性能和多功能性，对光物理性质进行简便的调节是非常理想的。为了克服在单分子平台上实现多色发光的光开关的挑战，我们在此报告了一种新型的氰基苯乙烯-萘酰亚胺二聚体的分级自组装，这是在单分子水平上实现光可调发光的实例。这项工作利用了氰基苯乙烯部分从 Z 构象到 E 构象的光异构化，这导致了分子自组装的形态无序，并产生了双荧光特性，伴随着发光颜色从黄色到绿色再到蓝色的逐步转换。这种具有可转换多色发光的体系可能在单分子选择性成像和标记方面具有应用潜力，正如本工作中呈现的细胞成像研究所示。
