Synthesis of AIE-active Materials with Their Applications for Antibacterial Activity, Specific Imaging of Mitochondrion and Image-Guided Photodynamic Therapy

Comparing with fluorescence molecules with aggregation-caused quenching (ACQ), fluorescence molecules with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) have great advantages in cell imaging, image-guided photodynamic therapy (PDT) and antibacterial activity. However, the reasonable design and synthesis of related molecules are still of great challenges. Herein, a consecutive strategy via several reliable reactions to prepare a series of AIE-active luminogens by adjusting their structures is reported. Having concentrated on the factors for the principle purpose of 1O2 generation, TPA-18 is picked out within all triphenylamine (TPA) derivatives according to its longer emission wavelength (640 nm in solid), the lowest energy gap between HOMO and LUMO (calculated as 2.04 eV), the totally separated orbital distributions of HOMO and LUMO, and typical AIE characteristics. Meanwhile, owing to the presence of the positive structural charge and the bright emission color, TPA-18 in aggregated form is detected as an impressive...