Abstract: 

Luminescence, as a natural gift, plays an essential role in our colorful world. So far, it is believed that the development of highly efficient fluorophores relies on covalently electronic conjugation. The traditional photophysical mechanism based on through-bond conjugation seems to be perfect in explaining the luminescence of most conjugated molecules. However, some inexpensive commodity materials without any aromatic structures, such as peptides, polysaccharides, and some artificial polymers, can emit visible and bright emission. Although this phenomenon has been observed for a long time, it has not attracted much attention as the underlying mechanisms were still unclear, and these materials were hard to utilize as luminescent materials due to their low efficiency. Recent works illustrate that the single-dispersed solutions of these (macro)molecules do not emit light under UV excitation, but their aggregates can emit bright visible light. This kind of concenptually new photoluminescence is named “clusteroluminescence (CL)” and the luminogens with CL characteristics are termed “clusteroluminogens (CLgens)”. Further experiments and theoretical calculations suggest that the through-space electronic interactions between the lone pairs of heteroatoms would form rigid nanocluster structures in the aggregate state, which ultimately emit light as a chromophore. Several approaches have been developed to manipulate the performance of CLgens with controllable CL. In terms of application, CLgens always show excellent biocompatibility, which may find applications as bioimaging or tracking probes. Meanwhile, as the inter- or intra-molecular distance is sensitive to mechanical force, smart mechanically responsive materials can be developed.

References

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3. H. Zhang, B. Z. Tang, et al. Mater. Today, 2019, 32, 275.

4. H. Zhang, B. Z. Tang, et al. JACS Au 2021, 1, 1805.

5. J. Zhang, B. Z. Tang, et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2021, 143, 9565.

6. Z. Zhang, H. Zhang, B. Z. Tang, et al. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2023, 62, e202306762.

Bio:

Ben Zhong Tang received PhD degree from Kyoto University and conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Toronto. He is now a Presidential Chair Professor and Dean of School of Science and Engineering at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen. He was elected to the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2009. He is currently serving as Editor-in-Chief of Aggregate published by Wiley. His research interests include materials science and biomedical theranostics. He has received many awards, such as National Natural Science Award (2017), Nano Today Award (2021) and Biomaterials Global Impact Award (2023). His publications have been cited over 202,300 times, with an h-index of 198. He has been listed as a Highly Cited Researcher since 2014 in both areas of Chemistry and Materials Science.