Aggregation-induced emission of non-conjugated poly(amido amine)s: Discovering, luminescent mechanism understanding and bioapplication

Abstract

It is found that the fluorescence of aliphatic poly(amido amine)s including linear and hyperbranched ones can be dramatically enhanced by simple aggregation of polymer chains, attributing to the formation of a variety of intra- and interchain clusters with shared lone-pair electrons and the restriction of intramolecular motions. Thanks to the combination of strong solid fluorescence and excellent biocompatibility, these non-conjugated polymers become promising candidates for bioimaging such as bacterial detection. This finding not only extends the aggregation-induced emission (AIE) systems from conjugated compounds to non-conjugated materials, which expands the bioapplication range of AIE systems, but also sheds light on the exploration of novel unconventional luminogens.