High-Efficiency Circularly Polarized Luminescence from Twisted Tetraarylethylene-Bridged Polybissilsesquioxane Nanotubes

Circularly polarized luminescence (CPL)-active materials have attracted increasing attention due to their applications in chiral sensing and optoelectronics. However, it is still a challenging task to fabricate CPL materials with large luminescence dissymmetry factors and strong emission intensities in the solid state. In this work, two singlehanded twisted tetraarylethylene (TAE)-bridged polybissilsesquioxane nanotubes have been facilely constructed through a supramolecular templating polymerization of TAE-bridged bis(triethoxysilane) with aggregation-induced emission properties, using self-assemblies of a pair of chiral amino acid-based cationic amphiphiles as the supramolecular templates. It is found that the chirality has been transferred from the self-assemblies to the polybissilsesquioxane nanotubes. The resulting hybrid silicas show high thermal stabilities and bright CPL with the fluorescence quantum yield up to 62.8%.

Automated summary

In this work, chiral polybissilsesquioxane nanotubes with high fluorescence quantum yield and bright CPL were successfully fabricated through supramolecular templating polymerization using self-assemblies of chiral amphiphiles as templates.