TETRAHEDRON LETTERS, vol.55, no.1, pp.70-73, 2014 (Journal Indexed in SCI)
A turn-on fluorescent chemosensor strategy based on the change in the polarity of aggregation induced emission active tetraphenylethene is presented for the detection of Hg2+ in aqueous medium and in living cells. The sensing mechanism involves the formation of nonpolar fluorescent aggregates of tetraphenylethene molecules by elimination of polar moieties of TPE with Hg2+ interaction. Crown copyright (C) 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.