A Conjugated Polymeric Supramolecular Network with Aggregation-Induced Emission Enhancement: An Efficient Light-Harvesting System with an Ultrahigh Antenna Effect

Authors：Xu, Linxian; Wang, Zaiyu; Wang, Rongrong; Wang, Lingyun; He, Xuewen; Jiang, Huanfeng; Tang, Hao^*; Cao, Derong^*; Tang, Ben Zhong^*

Source：Angewandte Chemie - International Edition, 2020, 59(25): 9908-9913.

DOI：10.1002/anie.201907678

• aggregation-induced emission
• conjugated polymers
• light harvesting
• pillararene
• supramolecular chemistry

Superior artificial light-harvesting systems (ALHSs) require exceptional capacity in harvesting light and transferring energy. In this work, we report a novel strategy to build ALHSs with an unprecedented antenna effect (35.9 in solution and 90.4 in solid film). The ALHSs made use of a conjugated polymeric supramolecular network (CPSN), a crosslinked network obtained from the self-assembly of a pillar[5]arene-based conjugated polymeric host (CPH) and conjugated ditopic guests (Gs). The excellent performance of the CPSN could be attributed to the following factors: 1) The "molecular wire effect" of the conjugated polymeric structure, 2) aggregation-induced enhanced emission (AEE) moieties in the CPH backbone, and 3) high capacity of donor-acceptor energy transfer, and 4) crosslinked structures triggered by the host-guest binding between Gs and CPH. Moreover, the emission of the CPSN could be tuned by using different Gs or varying the host/guest ratio, thus reaching a 96 % sRGB area.