A biomimetic supramolecular approach for charge transfer between donor and acceptor chromophores with aggregation-induced emission

Supramolecular assembly of chromophores with inherent resistance to aggregation-induced self-quenching is significant to applications such as chemical sensing and organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). In this work, molecular gels with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) are constructed by simply coassembling AIE chromophores (electron donor or acceptor) with a nonfluorescent molecular gelator. The binary gels are fluorescent even at very low concentrations of the AIE chromophores, indicating that the rotation of their aromatic cores is restricted in the gel network. In tertiary gels, the fluorescence of the donor chromophore can be efficiently reduced by the acceptor chromophore through a combination of static and dynamic quenching process, via charge transfer from the donor to the acceptor. This work demonstrates a convenient approach to fabricate a supramolecular charge transfer system using an AIE donor and acceptor.