Aggregation induced emission properties of new cyanopyridone derivatives

Nowadays, fluorescent organic compounds have attracted much research interest due to their academic significance and applications. The present article deals with the fluorescence behaviors of conjugated cyanopyridone based compounds (CP1–5) possessing various donor/acceptor moieties. These compounds showed aggregation-induced emission (AIE) properties in their THF/H2O mixtures due to the restriction of intramolecular rotation and exhibited a blue emission behavior in their aggregated state. During the AIE study, compound (CP-1) showed a red shift in the emission profile and rest of the compounds exhibited a blue shift in their emission profile. Further, field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) and Epi-fluorescence microscopic studies showed that the stronger emission of these compounds is mainly due to the formation of large-sized aggregates in the THF/water mixture than the pure THF.