Recent progress of Acenaphthylene-imide-fused polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons: Synthesis and application

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) have become one of the essential types of materials for organic electronics and bio-photonics, such as organic field-effect transistors, organic solar cells, bio-imaging, and cancer therapy. Acenaphthylene-imide (AnI)-fused PAHs with the inherent large pi-conjugated framework and electron-deficient imide moiety endow molecules low-lying LUMO energy levels for n-type organic semiconductors. In this review, the recent development of AnI-fused PAHs as organic semiconductors will be summarized, the synthetic methodology and the relationship between the molecular structures and properties (photophysical properties and/or devices performances) will be discussed in details. And it is believed to be helpful for further molecular design of AnI-fused PAHs with novel topological structures as functional materials.