A New Family of Photoluminescent Polymers with Dual Chromophores

Abstract

A new family of photoluminescent polymers with dual chromophores is prepared in this study by using poly(maleic anhydride-alt-vinyl acetate), acetone, and metal hydroxide. These polymers, which contain both bulky carboxylic ester groups and metal carboxylate groups, are found to be dual-emission photoluminescent, with a blue luminescence excitation-dependent group and a red luminescence excitation-independent group. These photoluminescence polymers with a nonconjugated structure and dual chromophores also show characteristics of aggregation-induced emission (AIE). The luminous intensities of the AIE fibers prepared using the polymers are found to increase after stretching, in contrast to traditional photoluminescent fibers with the aggregation-caused quenching property. The study also finds that the stretched fibers can emit the three primary colors when irradiated by ultraviolet, blue, and green light.

Keywords: aggregation-induced emission; dual-emission; nonconjugated; photoluminescent fibers; photoluminescent polymers.