Highly efficient dicyano-phenylenevinylene fluorophore as polymer dopant or zinc-driven self-assembling building block

Abstract

From a diamino dicyano-phenylenevinylene skeleton a symmetrically di-salen dye was obtained and employed both as a dopant in non-emissive polymer matrixes and as building blocks in the preparation of a zinc self-assembly polymer. The new fluorophore C1 belongs to the class of the luminescent liquid crystals (LLCs). The molecule produces red emission in the crystalline phase and yellow luminescence in the nematic phase, which dramatically decreases in on-off switch mode after LC order was lost. Both C1 and its self-assembly zinc-based coordination polymer suffers a lot aggregation caused quench effect (ACQ). Conversely, thin films obtained by dispersion in polystyrene (PS) and poly(9-vinylcarbazole) (PVK) show remarkably enhanced fluorescence, reaching the noteworthy value of 77% Photoluminescence Quantum Yield (PLQY) for the PVK doped sample.