One-pot development of water soluble copper nanoclusters with red emission and aggregation induced fluorescence enhancement

One-pot synthesis of water-soluble Cu NCs using DHLA protection ligands by different reducing reagents including NaBH4, N2H4 and THPC was developed. Furthermore, it was found that the as prepared Cu NCs using THPC as a reducing reagent describe fluorescence enhancement in the presence of Zn2+ and Al3+. It is proposed that the binding of Zn2+ and Al3+ to OH on the copper core of Cu NCs promotes the formation of CuNC-OH-Zn-OH-Cu NCs and CuNC-OH-Al-OH-Cu NCs aggregates respectively, which enables aggregation induced fluorescence enhancement. Additionally, it was found that the fluorescence enhancement were partly reversible by the introduction of an alkaline buffer solution and Zn2+.