https://phys.org/news/2018-05-highly-luminescent-inks-copperiodine-hybrid.html

The team led by Hong-Bin Yao at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, China, explores the preparation routes to AIE compounds, with the goal to prepare inks on a larger scale and without a big budget. A stable cluster of copper and iodine grabbed their attention. In combination with common phosphine ligands, this cluster was known to exhibit strong luminescence in its aggregated state, the typical AIE phenomenon. But a reliable way to get to that state, let alone applications, were not reported.

To prepare the AIE emitter, the starting compound must be present as a single, soluble molecule, then it is assembled and turned into something nanoparticular and non-soluble. The authors tackled the problem by employing an emulsifying–demulsifying process. By shaking the non-emitting complex dissolved in an organic solvent with a surfactant, they managed to confine the copper–iodine hybrid clusters in small droplets to obtain AIE-active nanoaggregates in a simple but effective way.