Hexaphenylbenzene based push-pull fluorophores displaying intriguing polarity-dependent fluorescence behavior, AIE(E) characteristics and mega-large Stokes shifts

Abstract

In general, most donor-acceptor type fluorophores are known to exhibit solvatochromic behavior and obey the energy gap law simultaneously, showing decreased emission with increasing solvent polarity. In this work, four push-pull hexaphenylbenzene (HPB) derivatives 1–4 have been designed and synthesized by introducing methoxy and dicyanovinyl groups at the tip of aromatic blades, which behave exceptionally polarity-dependent emission properties. In the low to medium solvent polarity region, the four dipole fluorophores display gradually enhanced fluorescence, whereas a reverse trend is observed with the further increase of solvent polarity. Meanwhile, 1–4 are found to exhibit the strongest emission at the same wavelength remarkably, which appears to be somewhat relevant to the intrinsic characteristics of dicyanovinyl-phenyl acceptor. A mechanistic scheme containing a conical intersection (CI) has been proposed to explain the up-down emission of 1–4 with increasing solvent polarity. Large Stokes shifts (up to 254 nm) and AIE(E) characteristics have also been achieved in these four HPB fluorophores. Besides, fluorophores 1–4 exhibit obvious freezing-solution induced chromism (FSIC), demonstrating an enhancement of the local matrix polarity upon freezing solutions.