Fluoride anion plays a crucial role in bone and tooth growth. However, overdose of fluoride anion can also lead to many chronic diseases and there is no specific medicine for fluorosis so far. Hence, the early detection and accurate estimation of fluoride anion intake are important. In this work, an aggregation-induced phosphorescent emission (AIPE)-active iridium(III) complex as fluoride anion probe (Ir-AF) has been developed by incorporating N-(4-hydroxylphenyl)-rhodol protected by tert-butyldiphenylsilyl onto cyclometalating ligand. As Ir-AF reacts with fluoride anion, the nonradiative transitions of Ir-AF would be promoted by enhanced photoinduced electron transfer effect and intramolecular rotations, leading to its phosphorescence quenching dramatically. Thus, Ir-AF has been used for fluoride anion measurement in the aqueous solution by ratiometric readout. Furthermore, with the utilization of the long-lived phosphorescence from Ir-AF, fluoride anion sensing in living cells with high signal-to-noise ratio has been achieved by time-resolved photoluminescence imaging. This is the first report of AIPE-active probe for fluoride anion.

氟阴离子在骨骼和牙齿的生长中起着至关重要的作用。然而，过量的氟阴离子也可导致许多慢性疾病，到目前为止，尚无针对氟中毒的特殊药物。因此，早期检测和准确估计氟离子的摄入量很重要。在这项工作中，通过将由叔丁基二苯基甲硅烷基保护的N-（4-羟苯基）-rhodol掺入环金属化中，开发了一种聚集诱导的磷光发射（AIPE）-活性铱（III）络合物作为氟阴离子探针（Ir-AF）。配体。作为铱AF用氟阴离子反应，的非辐射跃迁的Ir-AF增强的光诱导电子转移效应和分子内旋转会促进其发光，从而导致其磷光猝灭。因此，Ir-AF已用于通过比例读出来测量水溶液中的氟离子。此外，利用来自Ir-AF的长寿命磷光，通过时间分辨光致发光成像已经实现了具有高信噪比的活细胞中氟离子的感测。这是AIPE氟化物阴离子探针的首次报道。