Barbier polymerization induced emission toward stimuli-responsive aggregation-induced emission type green non-traditional intrinsic luminescence

In this work aggregation-induced emission (AIE) type green non-traditional intrinsic luminescence (NTIL) polymer with acid/base stimuli-responsive behavior has been achieved by AB-type Barbier polymerization-induced emission (PIE). DFT calculations illustrate that NTIL mechanism is due to intramolecular charge transfer and through-space conjugation under polymer chain confinement. Furthermore, the AIE type green NTIL polymer exhibits potential for explosive detection at ppm level in solution and ng level at solid state. Due to the reversible acid/base responsive luminescent properties of AIE type green NTIL polymer, potential applications for luminescent encryption and decryption have been demonstrated as well.