Ultrabright Acrylic Polymers with Tunable Fluorescence Enabled by Imprisoning Single Tict Probe.

Bright and colorful fluorescent polymers are ideal materials for a variety of applications. Although polymers could be made fluorescent by physical doping or chemical binding of fluorescent units, it is great challenge to get colorful and highly emissive polymers with a single fluorophore. Here we report the development of a general and facile method to synthesize ultrabright and colorful polymers using a single twisted intramolecular charge transfer (TICT) probe. By incorporating polymerizable, highly fluorescent and environmental sensitive TICT probe, a series of colorful acrylic polymers (emission from 481 nm to 543 nm) with almost 100% fluorescence quantum yields were prepared. Like the solvatochromic effect, functional groups within side chains of acrylic polymers (including alkyl chain, tetrahydrofurfuryl group, hydroxyl group and etc.) provided varied environmental polarity for the incorporated fluorophore, resulting in a series of colorful polymeric materials. Benefitting from the excellent photophysical properties, the polymers showed great potential in encryption, cultural relics protection, white light LED bulb making and fingerprint identification. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.