College of Chemistry, State Key Laboratory of Elemento-Organic Chemistry, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, P. R. China.
College of Science, Henan Agricultural University, Zhengzhou, Henan 450002, P. R. China.
Mater Horiz. 2021 Aug 31;8(9):2494-2502. doi: 10.1039/d1mh00811k.
Supramolecular macrocycle-mediated photoreaction has been a research hotspot recently. Herein, we fabricated a photo-responsive intelligent supramolecular assembly that consisted of a water-soluble dithienylethene derivative (DTE-MPBT) and cucurbit[]urils (CB[]). Importantly, CB[], especially CB[8], could act as activators and trigger conformational alteration of the arm parts (typical molecular rotors) of DTE-MPBT, achieving dual functions, high-efficiency visible-light-cyclization reaction of the DTE core and fluorescence enhancement of DTE-MPBT, resulting in the formation of a dual visible light-driven fluorescent switch. These unexpected discoveries prompted the supramolecular assembly to be applied to dual-visible-light-controlled targeted lysosomal imaging and QR code information recognition. Moreover, the solid-state assembly exhibited more outstanding fluorescence and visible-light-switched fluorescence performance because of the host-guest-induced aggregation synergistic effect, showing fascinating applications, such as light-manipulative data storage and anti-counterfeiting. In brief, we unprecedentedly adopted a supramolecular strategy of "killing two birds with one stone", assembly-activated photochromism (AAP) and assembly-activated emission enhancement (AAEE), to fabricate dual-visible-light-driven fluorescent switches, which show promising application prospects in biomimetic smart nanomaterials based on supramolecular self-assembly systems.
超分子大环介导的光反应最近成为了一个研究热点。在此，我们构建了一种光响应的智能超分子组装体，它由水溶性二噻吩乙烯衍生物（DTE-MPBT）和葫芦[ ]脲（CB []）组成。重要的是，CB []，特别是 CB[8]，可以作为激活剂，触发 DTE-MPBT 的臂部分（典型的分子转子）的构象改变，实现 DTE 核心的高效可见光环化反应和 DTE-MPBT 的荧光增强，从而形成双可见光驱动的荧光开关。这些意想不到的发现促使超分子组装体应用于双可见光控制的靶向溶酶体成像和 QR 码信息识别。此外，由于主客体诱导聚集协同效应，固态组装体表现出更出色的荧光和可见光切换荧光性能，展示出迷人的应用，如光操控数据存储和防伪。总之，我们以前所未有的方式采用了“一石二鸟”的超分子策略，组装激活光致变色（AAP）和组装激活发射增强（AAEE），来制备双可见光驱动的荧光开关，它们在基于超分子自组装体系的仿生智能纳米材料中具有广阔的应用前景。
