Facile fabrication of organic dyed polymer nanoparticles with aggregation-induced emission using an ultrasound-assisted multicomponent reaction and their biological imaging

Ultrasound as a powerful technique has increasingly been used in both industry and academia in recent years. Herein, an efficient approach to the ultrafast preparation of cross-linked fluorescent copolymers (PEGMA-AEMA-TPE) with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) via an ultrasound-assisted multicomponent reaction (MCR) is described. A number of characterization techniques were carried out to certify the successful preparation of these AIE-active copolymers. Due to the introduction of a hydrophilic PEG fragment and a hydrophobic AIE-active dye, the obtained fluorescent copolymers showed amphiphilic properties and could assemble into organic dyed polymer nanoparticles (ODPNs) with great water dispersibility. The final PEGMA-AEMA-TPE ODPNs demonstrated intense fluorescence, strong photostability, a low critical micelle concentration (CMC) of 0.007 mg mL −1 and high biocompatibility. More importantly, the PEGMA-AEMA-TPE ODPNs show obvious AIE characteristics, which could elegantly overcome the quenching effect caused by the aggregation of ODPNs based on conventional organic dyes. Considered the above results, we believe that these AIE-active ODPNs should be promising candidates for biological imaging and other biomedical applications.