Assembly-controlled supramolecular aggregation-induced emission systems based on amphiphilic block polymer hosts†

Abstract

The fabrication of controlled supramolecular assemblies and understanding the associated structure–function relationships of these assemblies it is of great significance in supramolecular chemistry. Uniform fluorescence supramolecular polymeric vesicles and/or micelles with enhanced photophysical properties were elaborately designed and prepared from amphiphilic block polymer hosts bearing pillar[5]arene units. These supramolecular assemblies have a working mechanism reliant on the synergistically confined effect of hydrophobic interactions and host–guest interactions. Additionally, the transformation from supramolecular polymeric vesicles to supramolecular polymeric micelles was achieved by selecting block polymer hosts with different length hydrophilic segments. The factors affecting the optical performance were investigated in detail, including the guest patterns, density of the pillar[5]arene units, the length of the hydrophilic segments and the solvent environment. By exploiting the amphiphilic block polymer hosts, efficient artificial light-harvesting systems with ordered arrangements of donor and acceptor molecules and tunable emission wavelengths were constructed. These artificial light-harvesting systems were used in Morse code information encryption matrixes with high storage capacity capable of simultaneously storing Chinese, English and numerical digits.