Effective enhancement of fluorescence signals in rotaxane-doped reversible hydrosol-gel systems

Rotaxane-based nanoscale architectures have a huge potential to be processed into widely applied devices. In this work, light-driven rotaxanes with fluorescent chromophores based on alpha-cyclodextrin (alpha-CyD) have been doped into amphoteric thermoreversible hydrosol-gels to form a new type of disperse system with reversible optical signals. The photoisomerizations with alpha-CyD shuttling have been studied by induced circular dichroism (ICD). Compared with their corresponding solutions, the rotaxane-doped hydrosol-gel systems produce much more obvious fluorescent binary signals.