An easy-to-make strong white AIE supramolecular polymer as a colour tunable photoluminescence material

Abstract

An easy-to-make supramolecular polymer was successfully constructed by self-assembly of tripodal tri-(pyridine-4-yl)-functionalized trimesic amide (DTB) in DMSO–H₂O binary solutions. The supramolecular polymer DTB showed strong white aggregation-induced emission (AIE) in the solid state as well as in water suspensions. DTB could also form a stable supramolecular polymer hydrogel (DTB-G) in pure water. Interestingly, DTB showed excellent coordination ability for rare earth metal ions (Tb³⁺, Eu³⁺, La³⁺, Th⁴⁺ and Ce³⁺) and formed the corresponding complexes (DTB-Ms). Interestingly, by introducing the above-mentioned rare earth metal ions, the fluorescence colour of the obtained DTB-Ms showed corresponding variations. By inseting UV-LED lamps (λ = 365 nm) into different rare earth metal ion-coordinated xerogel DTB-Ms in small test tubes, a series of LED devices with multicolour lights were obtained. Therefore, DTB and DTB-Ms can act as fluorescence colour-tunable photoluminescence materials.