Progress in aggregation-induced emission-active fluorescent polymeric hydrogels

Abstract

Aggregation-induced emission (AIE)-active fluorescent polymeric hydrogels (FPHs) are the marriage of AIE-active materials and polymeric hydrogels. Different from the widely studied AIE-active materials that are primarily used in solution or dry solid state, they feature a three-dimensional crosslinked polymer network that can absorb water without dissolving. Consequently, they are known to bear many advantageous properties such as soft wet nature, tissue-like mechanical strength, biocompatibility, biomimetic self-healing feature, facilely tailored structure, as well as responsive fluorescence and volume/shape changes, thus representing a promising category of luminescent materials with many frontier uses. This Review is intended to give a systematic summary of the recent progress in this young but flourishing research area, with particular focus on their design and preparation. Current challenges and future outlooks in this field are also discussed in order to attract new interests and inspire more efforts.