Luminescent liquid crystals (LCs), combining liquid crystalline order and luminescent properties, provide new opportunities for advanced materials. However, the traditional strategy to obtain luminescent LCs is often accompanied by aggregation-caused quenching, tedious synthesis, environmental hazards, and so on. In this work, we have studied the construction of LCs with clusterization-triggered emission (CTE) that can address the above issues and further can manipulate LC behavior and clusteroluminescence by host−guest interactions. The liquid crystal mesogen B-Chol formed a thermotropic LC with CTE character. The birefringence was changed and the chirality was inverted when B-Chol was protonated to B-Chol-H. Interestingly, after complexation with 1,4-dimethoxypillar[5]arene (DMP5), it changed into a crystalline phase with chirality inversion and CTE enhancement. Importantly, the quenching of clusteroluminescence, the inversion of chirality, and change of birefringence were achieved by adding acid due to the host−guest complexation between DMP5 and B-Chol-H. Furthermore, this regulatable clusteroluminescent LC system was successfully applied in the field of information encryption. This combination of clusteroluminescence, liquid crystals, and stimuli-responsiveness demonstrates the potential of nonconventional luminescent LCs as a promising platform for advanced anticounterfeiting and secure communication.
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