Regulating Biomorphic Hierarchical Structures for Enhanced Fluorescence Detection

ABSTRACT Drawing inspiration from nature to assemble polymeric building blocks into exquisite and complex hierarchical structures has garnered significant interest. However, the facile preparation of hierarchical materials featuring biomorphic architectures and enhanced functionality remains a significant challenge. Herein, we report a one‐step approach for constructing hierarchical biomorphic structures by modulating the self‐assembly of liquid crystalline diblock molecular brushes in solution. Diverse hierarchical structures, including jellyfish body‐like aggregates (JBAs), sea urchin‐like aggregates (SUAs), fuzzy ball‐like and square aggregates, were obtained through a one‐pot heating‐cooling‐aging process by fine‐tuning the polarity of the selective solvent as well as the annealing temperature. Importantly, these assemblies exhibit distinctive structural features and molecular functions, namely, structural biomimicry and fluorescence emission. Both JBAs and SUAs were employed for trace‐level detection of aromatic compounds. Fluorescence‐based detection of 4‐aminophenol at ultralow concentrations (10 −12 M , ppb level) was achieved through the formation of nonfluorescent aminophenol‐micelle complexes. Our study not only offers an efficient method for the fabrication of hierarchical biomorphic assemblies in a one‐step manner but also enables their application in hierarchical structure‐assisted chemical detection.