Hybridizing Carbon Nitride Colloids with a Shell of Water-Soluble Conjugated Polymers for Tunable Full-Color Emission and Synergistic Cell Imaging

We present the preparation of a new multicolor emission system constructed from two complementary conjugated materials that are highly phdtoluminescent, that is, phenyl-modified carbon nitride (PhCN) colloids as the core and water-soluble conjugated polymers (WSCPs) adsorbed as the shell. The fluorescence bands of the PhCN and WSCPs effectively complement each other and the overall emission can be simply adjusted to fully cover the visible light spectrum with white light emission also accessible. Photophysical insights imply that the interactions between PhCN and WSCPs preserve the binary system from emission distortion and degradation, which is essential to delicately tune the overall fluorescence bands. Notably, the continuously tunable emission color is achieved under single-wavelength excitation (365 nm). This hybrid shows a synergistic permeation performance in cell imaging, that is, PhCN nanoparticles help the WSCP to enter the cells and therefore multicolor cellular imaging achieved.