Living Hybrid Exciton Materials: Enhanced Fluorescence and Chiroptical Properties in Living Supramolecular Polymers with Strong Frenkel/Charge-Transfer Exciton Coupling

Abstract

A family of chiral perylene diimides (PDIs) was newly developed as excellent circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) materials. They are asymmetrically derivatized with a double-alkyl-chained L- or D-glutamate unit and a linear or branched alkyl chain. When water is added to the tetrahydrofuran (THF) solution of glutamate-PDI-linear-alkyl chain compounds, kinetically formed H-aggregates are formed in globular nanoparticles (NPs). These NPs undergo spontaneous transformation into thermodynamically stable nanotubes via helical nanostructures, which showed structured broad spectra originating from the strong coupling of delocalized Frenkel excitations (FE) and charge transfer excitations (CTE). Significant enhancement of circular dichroism (CD), fluorescence quantum yield, and circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) with luminescence dissymmetry factor (g_lum) are observed during the transformation of NPs to the FE/CTE-coupled helical and tubular structures. This transformation process is significantly accelerated by applying physical stimuli, i.e., ultrasonication or adding helical aggregates as seed crystals, a feature unique to living supramolecular polymerization. Meanwhile, the branched chain-containing PDIs only form H-aggregates and did not show FE/CTE hybrid exciton states with living supramolecular polymerization properties. This study unveils that suitably designed chiral PDI derivatives show FE/CTE coupling accompanied by high fluorescence quantum yields, enhanced chiroptical properties, and supramolecular living polymerization characteristics.