Fluorescent thiophene-based materials and their outlook for emissive applications

Although thiophene-based materials are among the most widely studied conjugated materials for a number of technological applications, most discussions of emissive conjugated materials have focused on other systems, primarily due to the lower emission quantum yields of thiophene-based systems. Over the last decade, however, this has begun to change with the development of new highly emissive thiophene-based materials. In this review, we provide an overview of fluorescent thiophene-based materials and their applications, highlighting in particular the various methods employed to achieve highly emissive materials, as well as a variety of reported applications including fluorescent biomarkers and organic light emitting diodes.