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A novelseries of donor–acceptor star-shaped conjugatedmacroelectrolytes (CMEs), denoted as 4FTs, including anionic carboxylicacid sodium groups (4FNaT), neutral diethanolamine groups (4FNOHT),and cationic ammonium groups (4FNBrT), were designed, synthesized,and explored as an excellent platform to investigate the impact ofvarious polar pendent groups on self-assembly behaviors. The resultingCMEs with donor–acceptor star-shaped architectures exhibiteddistinct light-harvesting properties. The interactions between 4FTsand TrNBr, a star-shaped monodisperse CME grafted with cationic quaternaryammonium side chains, were investigated in H2O and CH3OH using steady-state, time-resolved fluorescence, dynamiclight scattering (DLS), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM).Highly favored energy transfer has been proven by the excellent spectraloverlap between TrNBr fluorescence and 4FTs absorptions which canbe tuned by adjusting the pendent polar groups and solvents. It issuggested that self-assembled structures are formed between TrNBrand 4FNaT, while there is no obvious change for TrNBr/4FNOHT and TrNBr/4FNBrTin both H2O and CH3OH at low concentrations(<10–6M). This result is confirmed by the changeof the TrNBr and 4FTs fluorescence properties and the time-resolvedfluorescence data. The overall results manifest that at low concentrationsthe self-assembly between TrNBr and 4FTs is dominated by the electrostaticinteractions. This study suggests that the functionalization of pendentpolar groups of star-shaped CMEs has proven to be effective to modulatethe self-assembly behaviors in dilute solutions and thus provide astrategy to further manage the optoelectronic properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]