Pairwise Packing of Anthracene Fluorophore: Hydrogen-Bonding-Assisted Dimer Emission in Solid State.

Anthracene derivatives possessing a carbamate group and an ester group at their 9- and 10-positions, respectively, were prepared to furnish pairwise packing of anthracene fluorophores in their crystal structures. They were nonluminescent in ethanol solution and showed AIE (aggregation-induced emission) in aqueous ethanol solution and in solid state. Crystal structure analysis of them showed that the H-bonding networks involved in their crystal structures could be classified into four patterns, H-bonding between the carbamate and the ester carbonyl (motif A), H-bonding between the carbamate and the ester oxygen atom (motif B), H-bonded cyclic dimer of carbamate moieties (motif C), and H-bonded chain among carbamate moieties (motif D). Compounds with pairwisely packed anthracene fluorophores showed dimer emission with the longer fluorescence wavelength than others without the pair formation. Fluorescence maximum wavelengths and lifetimes become longer proportional to the degree of overlapping of two facing anthracene p-planes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]