Fmoc-protected amino acids as luminescent and circularly polarized luminescence materials based on charge transfer interaction

Fluorenylmethyloxycarbonyl (Fmoc)-protected amino acids are effective building blocks in self-assembled architectures at hierarchical levels, which however show limited luminescent properties and chiroptical activities. Here we introduce a charge-transfer strategy to build two-component luminescent materials with emerged circularly polarized luminescence properties. A library of Fmoc-amino acids was built, which selectively form charge-transfer complexes with the electron-deficient acceptor. Embedding in amorphous polymer matrix or physical grinding could trigger the charge-transfer luminescence with adjusted wavelengths in a general manner. X-ray diffraction results suggest the multiple binding modes between donor and acceptor. And, the solution-processed coassembly could selectively exhibit circularly polarized luminescence with high dissymmetry g-factors. This work illustrates a noncovalent charge-transfer strategy to construct luminescent and chiroptical organic composites based on the easy-accessible and economic chiral N-terminal aromatic amino acids.