Manipulating and visualizing the dynamic aggregation-induced emission within a confined quartz nanopore

Aggregation-induced emission (AIE) as a unique photophysical process has been intensively explored for their features in fields from optical sensing, bioimaging to optoelectronic devices. However, all AIE luminogens (AIEgens) hardly recover into the initial dispersed state after illuminating at the ultimate aggregated state, which limits AIEgens to achieve reversible sensing and reproducible devices. To real-time manipulate the emission of AIEgen, here we take the advantage of confined space in the quartz nanopore to achieve a nanopore-size-dependent restriction of AIEgens for reversible conversions of “on-to-off” and “off-to-on” emission. By electrochemically manipulating 26 fL AIEgen solution inside nanopore confinement, AIE illuminates while moves along nanopore from the constricted tip to inside cavity at a velocity of 1.4–2.2 μm s(−1), and vice versa. We further apply this dynamic manipulation for a target delivery of AIEgen into single cells, which opens up new possibility to design powerful and practical AIE applications.