Fluorescence Turn-On Visualization of Microscopic Processes for Self-Healing Gels by AIEgens and Anticounterfeiting Application

Self-healing gels are emerging as promising materials for various human-interfaced applications. Unveiling microscopic processes for self-healing gels is crucial for not only understanding self-healing mechanisms but also guiding material design, which is, however, hardly achieved because of the lack of direct and effective approaches. Herein, covalent bond-induced emission of AIEgen is, for the first time, utilized for establishing a fluorescence turn-on strategy to visualize microscope processes for self-healing gels. Such strategy allows the in situ monitoring of gelation and self-healing processes with extremely low background. Besides, the fluorescence also endows self-healing gels with diverse emission, especially white-light emission. By coding these multicolor fluorescent self-healing gels, fluorescent codes with a stealth effect are successfully fabricated with features of stretchability, wearability, reusability, and diversity, performing superiorly in anticounterfeiting. These results give rise to a deep insight into self-healing mechanism and will potentially boost the development of new multifunctional self-healing gels.