Journal of Materials Chemistry Blog

Despite the wordy and jargon laden title this paper by Wang et al presents interesting work on a highly novel class of luminescent material.

It is generally understood that when chromophores aggregate their emission is quenched, an event know as aggregation-caused quenching (ACQ). The main problem with this ACQ occurring is that it limits the use of these luminescent molecules in applications such as bio-imaging and sensors where brightness is key.

In response to this many research groups have focused on developing materials that are the exact opposite of ACG’s and where aggregation of the chromophores will actually promote luminescence. This phenomenon is referred to as aggregation-induced emission (AIE).

This paper presents work about a novel type of AIE material that overcomes the shortfalls of ACG and some other previous AIE luminogens. A red-emissive barbituic acid-functionalized TPE derivative (TPE-HPh-Bar) was designed and synthesized, the resulting material exhibits both AIE and also twisted intramolecular charge transfer (TICT). By altering the method of synthesis the TPE-HPh-Bar is capable of self-assembling into nanospheres, -rods and -tubes. All of these exciting characteristics indicate that this novel material could be used in a wide range of applications from biological imaging to optoelectronic nano-devices in the future.

Twisted intramolecular charge transfer, aggregation-induced emission, supramolecular self-assembly and the optical waveguide of barbituic acid-functionalized tetraphenylethene
Erjing Wang, Jacky W. Y. Lam, Rongrong Hu, Chuang Zhang, Yong Sheng Zhao and Ben Zhong Tang
J. Mater. Chem. C, 2014, 2, 1801-1807. C3TC32161D

H. L. Parker is a guest web writer for the Journal of Materials Chemistry blog. She currently works at the Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence, the University of York.

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“What? Why? How?” All kinds of “wh” questions I bombarded at my buddy Marc when he apprised me that he is not going to make it to the long awaited trip. “Somebody tried to poison me” followed by guffaw was the jocular repartee from Marc. After a demented pause from my side, Marc cleared the air of confusion and sickeningly reported that he is suffering from food poisoning. The next morning I drove down to his place to see how he is doing. In one of the friendly banters which we always indulge into, he said” Non sense, this food poisoning man, I wish I could have some device like a phone which can detect the contaminants in food right away, so that I can make store owner eat that food once I find it’s contaminated” followed by burst of  laughter. “Typical Marc” I muttered with smirk. But on my way back home that ‘device’ thought of Marc’s stuck in my head and being a chemist I started screening all the techniques used for the detecting chemicals and asked myself which technique can be exploited to make such a handy device to detect chemical contaminants. The answer came without a waste of second, its Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering(SERS)!

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The audience at Arthur Ashe Arena at Flushing Meadows were on their feet with a huge round of applause after the scintillating first set of tennis between Shui Peng and Caroline Wosniacki at the US Open 2014, one of the biggest and most renowned stages for tennis championships. It was 82F(29 oC) out there with grueling conditions for playing. One of the finest tennis contests was being produced until suddenly Shui was struck by cramp in her left leg which is a symptom of  many heat related illnesses. After 10 minutes of  high drama in the presence of nearly 20000 tennis frenzied crowds, Shaui Peng had to retire after several futile attempts to pursue her quest for the US open title. Multiple events of this sort have  prevailed in the history of the sports, also cases where athletes have withdrawn from competitions because of grueling weather forecasts are omnipresent . Being a sport enthusiast, I was forced to wonder, is it just temperature that is a culprit for heat illness or there is something else as a “partner in crime”?!

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