Fluorophore-LabelingTetraphenylethene Dyes Rangingfrom Visible to Near-Infrared Region: AIE Behavior, Performance inSolid State, and Bioimaging in Living Cells

Functional molecules with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) have lately received the most attention due to their versatile functions in many fields. In this work, tetraphenylethene (TPE) as one of the most concerned AIE systems was installed on different fluorophores including dansyl, naphthalimide, 4-nitro-1,2,3-benzoxadiazole (NBD), borondipyrromethene (BODIPY), hemicyanine to afford a series of new fluorescent dyes, whose spectra covered a fluorescence region of visible to near-infrared emission. Especially, these tetraphenylethene-containing compounds all exhibited AIE behavior. In solid state, they presented multicolor including blue, orange, red, crimson and NIR (near-infrared emission). It was worth mentioning that the dansyl- and NBD- coating TPEs exhibited obvious mechanoresponsive luminescence (MRL) phenomena. Moreover, these AIE-based TPEs displayed good bioimaging performance in living cells. This work will be helpful for designing functional AIE dyes with different fluorescence emission.