Nano-fluorogens Fabricated By Self-assembly Of Amphiphile:Towards Applications In Cell Imaging And Polymer Solar Cells

Amphiphiles are composed of hydrophilic and hydrophobic moieties within one molecule, and they aggregate to micelles with the uniform shape and size. The aggregates with ordered structures show different physical, chemical and electrical properties. Morphology of aggregates is closely related to the molecular structure and can also be tuned by changing of the assembly condition. Aggregates with different morphologies have shown great potential in the field of cancer therapy, drug delivery, cell imaging, and photoelectric materials.Great progress has been made in fluorescence materials with aggregation induced emission(AIE) effect. To date, the AIE-involved cell imaging systems comprised of organic nanoparticles(NPs), polymeric NPs, silica NPs. Although the polymeric and silica NPs show the better photo- and physical stability compared to organic NPs, the complicated fabrication may limit their applications. Herein, developing a simple method to fabricate biocompatible, stable aggregates with AIE dyes will facilitate the application of such kinds of fluorogens in bio-related systems.Fullerene derivatives have drawn much attention in nano-devices because of its excellent electronic and mechanical properties. The construction of well-ordered structures is thought to be crucial to reach high carrier mobilities. Therefore, we investigate influence of the ordered structure on the polymer solar cells.1. Water-soluble nano-fluorogens fabricated by self-assembly of bolaamphiphiles bearing AIE moieties: towards application in cell imaging. Nano-fluorogens with a mono-molecule layered structure were fabricated through the marriage of the AIE effect and self-assembly of bolaamphiphiles. It is found that the assemblies formed in the aqueous solution have two distinct mophologies depending on concentration, and emit strong green light. The assemblies show a quantum yield as high as 15% at a rather low concentration. More importantly, the nano-fluorogens can label HeLa cells and show good biocompatibility and low cytotoxicity.2. Supramolecular material based on alkylated-fullerene molecules: self-assembled architectures and photoelectric properties. We investigated the effect of self-assembly of alkylated-fullerene as interlayer on the performance of polymer solar cells. The nano-scale morphologies of the alkylated-fullerene interlayers were tuned by varying the concentration and polarity of the mixed solvents. It is found that the aggregates with fibrous structure give rise to better optoelectronic properties, compared with the amorphous structures.