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Aggregation-induced emission: a coming-of-age ceremony at the age of eighteen

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Abstract

Aggregation-induced emission (AIE) has drawn great attention worldwide for its unique optical phenomenon and huge potential applications. Since coined by Ben Zhong Tang et al. in 2001, AIE has been deeply investigated and widely utilized in many important areas, such as organic light-emitting diode (OLED), sensor, and bio-imaging. Herein, we highlight some important progress of AIE in these eighteen years, including the exploration of internal mechanism and potential applications. Furthermore, some other interestingly emissive behaviors, originating but distinguishing from the AIE concept, are presented It is anticipated an overall understanding about AIE could be easily caught from this short review for scientists, no matter whether they are involved in this exciting and rising research area or not.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Starting Grants of Tianjin University and Tianjin Government.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tianjin Key Laboratory of Molecular Optoelectronic Sciences, Department of Chemistry, Institute of Molecular Aggregation Science, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Jie Yang, Ben Zhong Tang & Zhen Li

  2. PCFM Lab, GD HPPC Lab, Guangdong Engineering Technology Research Center for High-performance Organic and Polymer Photoelectric Functional Films, State Key Laboratory of Optoelectronic Material and Technologies, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510275, China

    Zhenguo Chi

  3. Shanghai Key Laboratory of Functional Materials Chemistry, Key Laboratory for Advanced Materials and Institute of Fine Chemicals, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, 200237, China

    Weihong Zhu

  4. Department of Chemistry, The Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, Hong Kong, China

    Ben Zhong Tang

  5. Department of Chemistry, Sauvage Center for Molecular Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430072, China

    Zhen Li

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  1. Jie Yang
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  2. Zhenguo Chi
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  3. Weihong Zhu
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  4. Ben Zhong Tang
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  5. Zhen Li
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Correspondence to Ben Zhong Tang or Zhen Li.

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Conflict of interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Yang, J., Chi, Z., Zhu, W. et al. Aggregation-induced emission: a coming-of-age ceremony at the age of eighteen. Sci. China Chem. 62, 1090–1098 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-019-9512-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-019-9512-x

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