Stimulating and harnessing circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) is not only a sine qua non for fundamentally unveiling chirogenesis in physical chemistry, and also a pivotal prerequisite for implementation of such phenomenon in area of chiral optoelectronics and theranostics. Herein, red-emissive carbonized polymer dots (CPDs)-based helical structures were synthesized in this work via biomolecule-tailored organic-inorganic co-assembly strategy. The surface states related chirality exhibited enhanced circular dichroism (CD) and CPL activities with anisotropic factors as high as gCD,max=5.4×10-3 and glum,max=1.5×10-2 respectively. The obtained CPL signals can be further manipulated with an excitation-dependent manner indicating a synergistic-competition phenomenon is existed between configurational chirality and intermolecular energy-transfer dynamics, which is further supported by simulations based on density function theory (DFT). Such tunable CPL behaviors triggers revolutionary designs and applications of these chiral CPDs into the realm of chirality-related biological issues and next generation chiral optoelectronics.

Carbon dots (CDs) possess outstanding luminescence properties, leading to their use in a wide range of applications including optical displays, anti-counterfeiting systems, bioimaging and sensors. Presently, there is much debate about the classification of CDs, as well as their formation process, structure and fluorescence mechanisms. Aggregation plays an important role in both the formation of CDs and their fluorescence (e.g. aggregation-induced emission), yet is seldom studied in detail. This review aims fill this knowledge gap, by firstly exploring how aggregation leads to the formation of different types of CDs (e.g. graphene quantum dots, carbon quantum dots, and carbonized polymer dots), followed by a detailed examination of the effect of aggregation-induced morphology on the luminescence properties and application of CDs. Finally, opportunities and challenges for the application of CDs in various applications are discussed, with the need for better mechanistic understanding of aggregation-induced luminescence being an imperative.