Tetraphenylethylene-Incorporated Macrocycles and Nanocages: Construction and Applications

Dyes exhibiting aggregation-induced emission (AIE) properties can efficiently circumvent the aggregation-caused quenching phenomenon presented in conventional fluorophores in their solid state. As one of the AIE dyes, tetraphenylethylene (TPE) has attracted tremendous attention because of its concise synthesis, stability, at least four reaction sites, and so on, making it a splendid building block for macrocycles and nanocages. In TPE-incorporated macrocycles and nanocages, the AIE effect can be not only preserved but also enhanced as a result of the geometrical constraint of the otherwise rotatable phenylene rings in the TPE units, which endows them with various applications involving the encapsulation and detection of explosives and dyes. This review surveys the recent developments of TPE-incorporated macrocycles and nanocages all the way from the perspective of synthetic strategies involving dynamic covalent chemistry, covalent bonding, and metal coordination to their potential applications in explosives detection, chemical sensing, cell imaging, and catalysis. Finally, we summarize the state-of-the-art status and challenges in this area, which we hope will guide future investigations.