title: SERS and NMR Studies of Typical Aggregation-Induced Emission Molecules.
abstract: Over recent decades, aggregation-induced emission (AIE) molecules have attracted increasing attention. Restriction of intramolecular rotation (RIR) has been widely accepted as the cause of the emission when AIE molecules aggregate into clusters. The intramolecular rotation of AIE molecules can be monitored by molecular vibration spectra such as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), infrared, and Raman, especially surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) which has high sensitivity down to a single molecule. We employed SERS and NMR to study the AIE emission mechanism and compared experimental results with simulation data to monitor the RIR. Interestingly, we found that intramolecular rotation was also restricted for individual AIE molecules loaded onto SERS substrate surfaces due to the laid-down configuration.
authors.affiliation: †Global Centre for Environmental Remediation, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, New South Wales 2308, Australia.
authors.forename: Cheng
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Fang
authors.affiliation: ‡Key Laboratory of Organic Solids, Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Science (BNLMS), Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
authors.forename: Yujun
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.forename: Martin R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Johnston
authors.affiliation: ⊥Institute of Photonics and Advanced Sensing, School of Physical Science, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide 5005, Australia.
authors.forename: Yinlan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ruan
authors.affiliation: #Department of Chemistry, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China.
authors.forename: Ben Zhong
authors.initials: BZ
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.affiliation: ‡Key Laboratory of Organic Solids, Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Science (BNLMS), Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
authors.forename: Qian
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Peng
authors.forename: Youhong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Tang