Micelle triggered emission from non-conjugated amines: An abiotic system akin to GFP

Abstract

The green fluorescent protein (GFP) shows a vivid model to design and fabricate fluorescent materials, however, a simple and generic strategy has not been really achieved to mimic the GFP system. Here we report a strategy to prepare nanoscale micelles acting like the “nano-can” in GFP, enabling a group of non-luminous amines to fluoresce. The fluorescent systems can be fabricated by mixing two kinds of commercially available non-conjugated precursors, one is amphiphilic ring-type compound for micelle, the other is amine for chromophore. Our results suggest that the nanoscale micelles provide ideal confined domains, within which amine compounds can form effective chromophores. The micelle-triggered method is generalizable to various kinds of precursors, and the emission can be tuned at different colors upon altering precursors. The presented strategy will be a starting point for a new luminescent research area in which we pay more attention on the environment than chromophore.