Search

The ingenious construction of versatile cancer phototheranostics involving fluorescence imaging (FLI) and photodynamic and photothermal therapies (PDT, PTT) concurrently has attracted great interest. By virtue of their inherent twisted structures and plentiful motion moieties, aggregation‐induced emission luminogens (AIEgens) have been proven to be perfect templates for the development of multimodal phototheranostic systems as their diverse energy consumption pathways can be flexibly regulated through tuning the intramolecular motions. Side‐chain engineering is generally accepted as a useful regulation strategy for intramolecular motions through altering the side‐chain structure of the molecule, but has rarely been reported for the construction of AIE‐active multimodal phototheranostics. Herein, by taking full advantage of the side‐chain engineering strategy, an AIE‐active multifunctional phototheranostic system (TBFT2 nanoparticles) is successfully constructed by intentionally manipulating the length of side chains. Bearing the longest alkyl chain, all of those three energy dissipation pathways including radiative decay, nonradiative thermal deactivation, and intersystem crossing process of TBFT2 are retained simultaneously and controllably in the aggregate state. In vitro and in vivo evaluations verify that TBFT2 nanoparticles perform well in terms of FLI‐guided PDT and PTT synergistic cancer therapy. This study thus provides new insight into the exploration of superior versatile phototheranostics through side‐chain engineering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using reverse thinking of the aggregation‐induced emission (AIE) principle, we demonstrate an ingenious and universal protocol for amplifying molecular motions to boost photothermal efficiency of fibers. Core–shell nanofibers having the olive oil solution of AIE‐active molecules as the core surrounded by PVDF‐HFP shell were constructed by coaxial electrospinning. The molecularly dissolved state of AIE‐active molecules allows them to freely rotate and/or vibrate in nanofibers upon photoexcitation and thus significantly elevates the proportion of non‐radiative energy dissipation, affording impressive heat‐generating efficiency. Photothermal evaluation shows that the core–shell nanofibers with excellent durability can reach up to 22.36 % of photothermal conversion efficiency, which is 26‐fold as the non‐core–shell counterpart. Such a core–shell fiber can be used for photothermal textiles and solar steam generation induced by natural sunlight with green and carbon‐zero emission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]