Assembly and disassembly activity of two AIEE model compounds and its potential application.

Aggregation-induced emission (AIE) has received great attention. In this paper, Cu induced self-assembly and HS induced disassembly of two aggregation-induced emission enhancement (AIEE) compounds were reported in this paper. Two salicylaldehyde azine Schiff base were synthesized and characterized. It is found that 1 and 2 are AIEE active molecular both in aqueous solution and crystal state with strong yellow fluorescence. Theirs fluorescence can be selectively quenched in the presence of Cu ions with the formation of self-assembly system [1-Cu]. The interaction mechanism has been researched by multiple means. Depending on this reaction, energy changes (ΔG) from 1 to [1-Cu] was also estimated by Scatchard formula. Moreover, the quenching fluorescence was further restored by HS both in tube and live cells along with the releasing of AIEE molecular 1. That is, a reversible process between AIEE, self-assembly and disaggregation can be found in the model compound.