Micelle triggered emission from non-conjugated amines: An abiotic system akin to GFP

The green fluorescent protein (GFP) shows a vivid model to design and fabricate fluorescent materials, however, a simple and generic strategy has not been really achieved to mimic the GFP system. Here we report a strategy to prepare nanoscale micelles acting like the “nano-can” in GFP, enabling a group of non-luminous amines to fluoresce. The fluorescent systems can be fabricated by mixing two kinds of commercially available non-conjugated precursors, one is amphiphilic ring-type compound for micelle, the other is amine for chromophore . Our results suggest that the nanoscale micelles provide ideal confined domains, within which amine compounds can form effective chromophores. The micelle-triggered method is generalizable to various kinds of precursors, and the emission can be tuned at different colors upon altering precursors. The presented strategy will be a starting point for a new luminescent research area in which we pay more attention on the environment than chromophore.