Luminescence Enhancement of Pyrene/Dispersant Nanoarrays Driven by the Nanoscale Spatial Effect on Mixing

Abstract

This work presents a simple method to generate ordered chromophore/dispersant nanoarrays through a pore-filling process for a nanoporous polymer template to enhance chromophore luminescence. Fluorescence results combining with the morphological evolution examined by scanning probe microscopy reveal that the enhanced luminescence intensity reaches the maximum intensity as the nanopores of the template are completely filled by the chromophore/dispersant mixture. The variation is attributed to nanoscale spatial effect on the enhanced mixing efficiency of chromophore and dispersant, that is, the alleviation of self-quenching problem, as evidenced by the results of attenuated total reflection Fourier transform IR spectroscopy combining with grazing incident wide-angle X-ray diffraction. The enhanced luminescence of the chromophore/dispersant nanoarrays driven by the nanoscale spatial effect is highly promising for use in designing luminescent nanodevices.

Microstructure and properties of novel fluorescent pyrene functionalized PANI/P(VDF‐HFP) blend

“…It is to be noted that PANI‐EB has been reported to exhibit diffraction peak at 2θ = 20° and 25° while the diffraction peak at ca. 2θ = 7.3° is the characteristic peak of pyrene moiety . In our case, it is possible that upon pyrene functionalization the peaks at 2θ = 20° and 25° are not well resolved and seems to exhibit a broad single scattering peak at ca.…”

“…It is known that pyrene in the aggregated state suffers from reduced‐emission due to self‐quenching effect . Very recently, significant enhancement in fluorescent intensity of pyrene molecules has been reported and the reason for enhancement is attributed to reduced self‐quenching effect upon confining them to nanosizes . Thus, one could speculate that such a nanosize confinement of pf‐PANI exists even in the solution phase which could be the reason for high PL intensity in the blend.…”