Electrochemically Switchable Circularly Polarized Photoluminescence within Self-Assembled Conducting Polymer Helical Microfibers

Achieving electrically and/or electrochemically controlled circularly polarized photoluminescence (CPL) is challenging due to the non-electroactive characteristics of most chiral materials and the non-electrosensitive feature of materials' chiroptical signals. Here we found that the CPL of self-assembled conducting polyaniline (PANI) helical microfibers could be reversibly switched by applying an alternating electrical bias. The conducting polymer is not the fluorophore but can transfer its chirality to the coassembled aggregation-induced emission (AIE) fluorescent molecules. The electrochemically switchable CPL is derived from the reversible transformation of the chirality of the polyaniline microfibers, which is probably due to the change in the molecular interchain distance upon doping/dedoping. Subsequently, we have demonstrated double-layer information encryption based on the electrochemically reversible CPL and conductance.