An Adaptable Cryptosystem Enabled by Synergies of Luminogens with Aggregation-Induced-Emission Character

The strong emission in the solid state and the feasibility of introducing stimuli responsiveness make aggregation-induced-emission luminogens promising for optical information encryption. Yet, the vast majority of previous reports rely on subtle changes in the molecular conformation or intermolecular interactions, limiting the robustness, multiplicity, capacity, and security of the resulting cryptosystems. Herein, a versatile cryptographic system is presented based on three interconnected and orthogonal covalent transformations concerning a tetraphenylethylene-maleimide conjugate. The cryptosystem is adapted into four configurations with different functionalities by organizing the reactions and molecules in different ways. These variants either balance the accessibility and security of the encrypted information or improve the security and density in data encryption. Significantly, they allow variable decryption from a single encryption and reconstruction of the chemical nature hidden in the fluorescent pattern can only be accessed through given algorithms. These results highlight the importance of multi-component synergies in advancing information encryption systems, which is enabled by the robustness and diversity stemming from the covalent nature of these transformations.