Aggregation-Induced Emission Materials for Tumor Phototheranostics

In recent years, aggregation-induced emission (AIE) materials have attracted much attention in the field of tumour treatment due to their excellent attributes of aggregation-enhanced theranostics. The AIE materials can dissipate the excited state energy through different energy relaxation pathways to generate reactive oxygen species or heat, which can be used for imaging-guided tumour phototherapy. The research progress of AIE materials for tumor phototheranostics is systematically summarized according to the different excitation modes, specifically photogenic excitation (including the use of white light, 660, 808, 980 or 1064 nm lasers), chemical excitation, ultrasonic excitation and X-ray excitation. In addition, the advantages and limitations of each excitation energy source are briefly discussed.