Recent Application Progress on Aggregation-Induced Emission

Luminescence of conventional fluorophores often becomes weakened or quenched at high concentration or solid state. In contrast, some are non-luminescent in solution but highly emissive in the aggregate or solid state, so called aggregation-induced emission (AIE), which might be resulted from the restriction of intramolecular rotation (RIR) and changes in aggregate morphology. Herein, the latest progress on ALE since 2008 is reviewed, such as: (i) developing chemo- or bio-sensors for detecting ions, gas, small molecules, explosives, proteins, enzymes and so on; (ii) incorporating the AIE unit to realize highly luminescent solid emitters, especially for OLEDs (organic light-emitting diodes); (iii) tuning the aggregation morphology to construct reversible multi-responsive materials stimulated by pressure, heat or solvent vapor; (iv) due to the biocompatibility of aggregate nanoparticles, developing hybrid materials including fluorescent silica nanoparticles, polymeric micelles and electrolytes for applications in cell imaging, structure analysis and bioassay.