LAUSR

Two phenothiazine-based polymers—tetraphenylethylene- (PTzTPE) and triphenylacrylonitrile-substituted (PTzTPAN) polyphenothiazines—were studied in organic solvents, solid state, and THF:water and dioxane:water mixtures to investigate the occurrence of aggregation-induced emission (AIE). It is shown that AIE is present for the PTzTPE and PTzTPAN polymers in THF:water mixtures, although to a lesser extent in the latter case. The emission of PTzTPE was found to display the simultaneous emission of locally excited (LE) and charge transfer (CT) states with emission maxima at ∼480 and ∼640 nm, respectively. Dynamic light scattering measurements in THF:water mixtures point out to the formation of small nanoaggregates in which the polymers likely adopt a collapsed structure. The overall effect of the restriction of molecular movements of TPE or TPAN units and the poly(phenothiazine) backbone (thus leading to the enhancing of the excited state radiative channel over the internal conversion deactivation channel thr...