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Highly planar organic emitters have been developed from 4-styrylbenzonitrile structure, which show strong AIE properties and deep blue emission in solid state with good to excellent fluorescence quantum efficiency. [Display omitted] • 4-Styrylbenzonitrile derivatives are synthesized. • These planar fluorophores show strong AIE properties. • These compounds are efficient deep blue emitters in solid states with high quantum yields. Organic fluorescent molecules with π-conjugated system have shown great importance in numerous applications including bioimaging and optoelectronics. Planar aggregation-induced emissive (AIE) organic compounds with efficient solid-state luminescence are rarely developed and urgently needed in various applications. In this work, highly planar 4-styrylbenzonitrile derivatives have been synthesized. Most of these compounds show strong AIE properties with hundred-fold fluorescent enhancement. Moreover, these molecules are deep blue emissive in solid state, exhibiting good to excellent fluorescence quantum efficiency. The single crystal analysis shows that adjacent molecules could form special J-type aggregation. The intramolecular rotations are efficiently restricted by various noncovalent interactions. These molecular arrangements could be essential for the observed strong emission in aggregated and solid state. This work has paved a new path to efficient AIE-active organic emitters with highly planar conformations from 4-styrylbenzonitrile structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The design and exploration of efficient organic fluorophores have attracted significant scientific interest for their various potential applications. As blue fluorescent materials are essential for the achievement of a full-color display and white emission, the development of new efficient organic blue-emitting materials is of great importance. In this work, we found that simple organic molecules 2-aryloxybenzo[d]oxazoles could act as novel organic fluorophores with special AIE properties and efficient blue fluorescent emission in the solid states. Compounds 3 and 4 possess moderately high quantum yields at 10.3% and 11.4%, respectively. The CIE coordinates indicate that most of these compounds are deep-blue emitters. The single crystal structure of compound 3 shows that it has a twisted V-shape molecular structure with J-type aggregation. Noncovalent interactions widely exist in the crystal structures, while π-π stacking interactions are not observed between adjacent aromatic rings. The special fluorescent properties of these new emitters could ascribe to the unique molecular packing mode in the crystal structure. This work provides a new strategy to access organic solid-state fluorophores with deep-blue emission. Simple organic molecules (2-aryloxybenzo[d]oxazoles) act as novel organic fluorophores with special AIE properties and efficient deep blue fluorescent emission in the solid states. Image 1 • 2-Aryloxybenzo[d]oxazoles derivatives are designed and synthesized. • These fluorophores show special AIE properties. • These compounds exhibit efficient deep blue emission in solid states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]