To maintain high molar extinction coefficients when fabricating luminogens with aggregation-induced emission characteristics (AIEgens) is of great significance but yet challenging. Hereof, we utilize phenanthroline with high conjugation degree and electron-withdrawing ability as the electron acceptor and triphenylamine (TPA) or tetraphenylethylene (TPE) as the electron donor to fabricate new AIEgens with high molar extinction coefficients. Accordingly, DTPAP and DTPEP with D-A-D structure were obtained. Photophysical data indicated that the introduction of phenanthroline can enhance the donor-acceptor interactions to result in high molar extinction coefficients with value of 2.90 ×104 L•mol-1•cm-1 at 400 nm for DTPEP. Moreover, DTPEP, with more rotors in the donor moiety exhibited AIE feature, while in contrast, DTPAP with less rotors displayed aggregation-caused quenching (ACQ) property. Both DTPEP and DTPAP can be used for the fluorescent sensing of metal ions in aqueous solution. A facile and portable platform for smartphone capable of detection of Hg2+ was also fabricated by using AIEgen DTPEP. The device was applied for rapid detection of Hg2+ with a wide range of 0-25 μM.

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