Homochiral metalated tetraphenylethylene-based organic cages: Unusual chiral and luminescent behavior depending on thermodynamic and kinetic aggregation

Chirality and luminescence are important for both chemistry and biology, which are highly influenced by aggregation. In this work, a pair of metalated tetraphenylethylene(TPE)-based organic cage enantiomers are reported, which feature a quadrangular prismatic cage structure. These homochiral cages exhibit concentration-dependent chiral behaviors alongside a propensity for thermodynamic aggregation. Aggregation caused quench effect is found for these cages accompanying the increasing of the concentrations. When a poor solvent is added to produce a kinetical aggregation, the aggregation-annihilation circular dichroism and aggregation-induced emission behaviors are observed for these enantiomeric cages. By comparing these observations with the photophysical behaviors of a pair of structurally similar organic molecular enantiomers, the unique photophysical properties observed are intricately linked to the metal-integrated TPE-functionalized cage structures.