Light has profoundly impacted modern medicine and healthcare, with numerous luminescent agents and imaging techniques currently being used to assess health and treat diseases. As an emerging concept in luminescence, aggregation-induced emission (AIE) has shown great potential in biological applications due to its advantages in terms of brightness, biocompatibility, photostability, and positive correlation with concentration. This review provides a comprehensive summary of AIE luminogens applied in imaging of biological structure and dynamic physiological processes, disease diagnosis and treatment, and detection and monitoring of specific analytes, followed by representative works. Discussions on critical issues and perspectives on future directions are also included. This review aims to stimulate the interest of researchers from different fields, including chemistry, biology, materials science, medicine, etc., thus promoting the development of AIE in the fields of life and health.

Bi is a promising candidate for energy storage materials because of its high volumetric capacity, stability in moisture/air, and facile preparation. In this study, the electrochemical performance of nanosized-Bi-embedded one-dimensional (1D) carbon nanofibers (Bi/C nanofibers) as anodes for Li-ion batteries (LIBs) and Na-ion batteries (NIBs) was systematically investigated. The Bi/C nanofibers were prepared using a single-nozzle electrospinning method with a specified Bi source followed by carbothermal reduction. Abundant Bi nanoparticles with diameters of approximately 20 nm were homogeneously dispersed and embedded in the 1D carbon nanofibers, as confirmed by structural and morphological characterization. Electrochemical measurements indicate that the Bi/C nanofiber anodes could deliver a long cycle life for LIBs and a preferable rate performance for NIBs. The superior electrochemical performances of the Bi/C nanofiber anodes are attributed to the 1D carbon nanofiber structure and uniform distribution of Bi nanoparticles embedded in the carbon matrix. This unique embedded structure provides a favorable electron carrier and buffering matrix for the effective release of mechanical stress caused by volume change and prevents the aggregation of Bi nanoparticles.

We demonstrate a novel synthetic approach to ortho-methyl substituted tetraphenylethene materials, which can be utilised for directly validating the restriction of intramolecular rotation hypothesis as the basic mechanism of aggregation-induced emission phenomenon and cell imaging.