Light-emitting conjugated polymers with microporous network architecture: interweaving scaffold promotes electronic conjugation, facilitates exciton migration, and improves luminescence

Herein we report a strategy for the design of highly luminescent conjugated polymers by restricting rotation of the polymer building blocks through a microporous network architecture. We demonstrate this concept using tetraphenylethene (TPE) as a building block to construct a light-emitting conjugated microporous polymer. The interlocked network successfully restricted the rotation of the phenyl units, which are the major cause of fluorescence deactivation in TPE, thus providing intrinsic luminescence activity for the polymers. We show positive "CMP effects" that the network promotes π-conjugation, facilitates exciton migration, and improves luminescence activity. Although the monomer and linear polymer analogue in solvents are nonemissive, the network polymers are highly luminescent in various solvents and the solid state. Because emission losses due to rotation are ubiquitous among small chromophores, this strategy can be generalized for the de novo design of light-emitting materials by integrating the chromophores into an interlocked network architecture.