The Helicenes

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Abstract “Helicene” is the name introduced by Newman in 1955, to describe the benzologues of phenanthrene in which the extra ortho ‐condensed rings give rise to a (regular) cylindrical helix. The pioneer work of Newman in this field cannot be overemphasized; his brillant synthesis and resolution of [6]helicene, achieved eighteen years ago, will remain as a landmark, for it opened the way to the study of a fascinating class of synthetic molecules. In the following review, an attempt is made to summarize the present state of our knowledge in this rapidly expanding field.