Zhang’s comment on his Aggregate paper entitled “Kinetic and
thermodynamic control of tetraphenylethene aggregation-induced emission
behaviors”[1]:
Tetraphenylethene (TPE) is a classic example of an Aggregation-Induced
Emission (AIE) system. In good solvents, it doesn’t display any
photoluminescence. However, in poor solvents, it exhibits sky-blue
fluorescence emission. During the experiment, we noticed subtle changes
in TPE’s AIE emission wavelength and peak maximum and spectral shape
over time. By synthesizing various derivatives, we discerned this
phenomenon is prevalent during AIE sample preparation. Organic
molecules, when aggregating rapidly, might be locked into a kinetically
metastable state that remains stable at room temperature. But this
kinetic stability can transition to a thermodynamically stable
aggregated state when heated or when exposed to good solvents. Depending
on the molecular structure, these kinetically aggregated species and
thermodynamically aggregated species display vastly different
luminescent phenomena. This topic underscores that the physical
properties of organic aggregates are highly sensitive to their
surroundings and offers crucial theoretical insights for precision
synthesis of an AIE system.
REFERENCES
X. Nie, W. Huang, D. Zhou, T. Wang, X. Wang, B. Chen, X. Zhang, G.
Zhang, Aggregate 2022 , 3 , e165.
https://doi.org/10.1002/agt2.165
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The author declares that there is no conflict of interest.