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A novel fluorescent chemosensor (2) for the detection of Al(III) was designed based on the strategy of aggregation-induced emission (AIE), which was synthesized by introducing carboxyl group to tetraphenylethylene structure. 2 can bind with Al(III) to form chelate polymers with AIE characteristic, giving rise to an intense “turn-on” response in aqueous solution at pH 7.0. The binding stoichiometry of 2 toward Al(III) was in 1:1. High sensitivity and selectivity to Al(III) were achieved. A detection limit of 1.96 μmol L−1 and a linear rang of 0.0–50.0 μmol L−1 were obtained. Furthermore, 2 was successfully applied in detecting Al(III) in real water samples, which showed satisfactory recovery and accuracy.

Photoresponsive materials with good luminescence property in solid state have shown promising applications in bio-imaging, photo-patterning, and optical switch related areas. However, most of the reported photoresponsive systems suffered from the drawbacks of either weak luminescence property in solid state or complex synthetic processes. In this work, a novel photoresponsive molecule of 2,3-diphenyl-6,7-dicyanoquinoxaline (PCQ) has been facilely prepared via one-step reaction with commercially available materials. PCQ exhibits typical aggregation-induced emission (AIE) property due to the mechanism of restricted intramolecular rotation (RIR). As a photoresponsive molecule, PCQ shows remarkable fluorescence changes both in solution and in solid state upon UV light irradiation. Mechanism study reveals that there is an UV light-induced isomerization reaction in PCQ. A good linear relationship between fluorescence intensity and UV light power density is achieved, which suggests that PCQ can be served as a sensor for monitoring UV light strength. Furthermore, characters are successfully recorded on PCQ in solid matrix, demonstrating the feasible application of PCQ in photo-patterning. The conspicuous contrast between the states before and after UV light irradiation suggests that PCQ can be potentially used as an anti-counterfeiting material. PCQ enriches the kinds of AIE luminogen (AIEgen) and, more importantly, this work provides a new strategy for constructing multifunctional photoresponsive systems with good luminescence property.