Multicolor Luminescent Supramolecular Bidirectional Shuttles Driven by Light.

Possessing special photophysical behavior, supramolecular space-confined assembly is widely applied in bioimaging, information anti-counterfeiting, and luminescent materials. Herein, two different multicolor luminescent supramolecular bidirectional shuttles driven by light are reported, which are constructed by spiropyran-modified p-styrene derivatives (BPSP), cucurbit[7]uril (CB[7]) and cucurbit[8]uril (CB[8]). CB[7] encapsulated BPSP not only effectively enhance the fluorescence intensity both in the ring-closed and ring-open states accompanied with multicolor luminescence from blue to red, but also produce ortho-hexagonal nanosheets. Different from CB[7], the binding of CB[8] to BPSP formed a nanospherical topological morphology. It induce the red-shift of fluorescence from blue to yellow, which completely transform into red fluorescence in the dark. Both the multicolor luminescence and topological morphology can be reversibly regulate under alternating visible light and darkness. Due to the photo-controlled time-dependent multicolor reversible luminescence of the two kinds of supramolecular assemblies, they are successfully applied to logic gates, bidirectional reversible anti-counterfeiting, and controllable cell imaging, providing a new strategy for macrocycle-confined molecular assembly.