Synergistic combination of ACQ and AIE moieties to enhance the emission of hexagonal metallacycles.

Herein, we show the synergistic combination of aggregation-caused quenching (ACQ) and aggregation-induced emission (AIE) units into two hexagonal metallacycles. The resultant metallacycles displayed emergent photophysical properties including tunable fluorescence using the polarity and solubility of the solvents as well as enhanced emissive efficacy. Our work demonstrates the synergistic enhancement of these two orthogonal effects via coordination-driven self-assembly.