Restriction of Intramolecular Vibration in Aggregation-Induced Emission Luminogens: Applications in Multifunctional Luminescent Metal-Organic Frameworks

Butterfly-like molecules of oxacalix[2]arene[2]pyrazine (OAP) are reported, which exhibit the typical characteristics of aggregation-induced emission (AIE) via the restriction of intramolecular vibration (RIV) mechanism. Unlike any of the reported RIV-type AIE molecules, the synthetic procedures of which are complicated and have associated high costs, OAP AIEgens can be synthesized in a facile manner by a one-step catalyst-free reaction using commercially available materials. Notably, OAP AIEgens are ideal ligands for constructing metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) due to their built-in pyrazine coordination sites. OAP-based MOFs exhibit multiple potential applications in reversible gas response, encrypted information storage, and construction of white light-emitting devices. This work builds on RIV-type AIEgens, offers additional selections of bridging ligands for constructing luminescent MOFs and provides a visualized prototype to understand the effect of the RIV process on the luminescence properties of MOFs.

Automated summary

The study reports butterfly-like molecules of OAP with typical AIE characteristics achieved through the RIV mechanism. OAP AIEgens can be synthesized easily using commercially available materials, making them ideal ligands for constructing MOFs. The OAP-based MOFs have potential applications in gas response, information storage, and white light-emitting devices.