The unusual physicochemical properties of azulene and azulene-based compounds

Azulene, an isomer of naphthalene, has become one of hot chemical structures in the research field of functional materials, due to its anti-Kasha’s rule emissions and unusual physicochemical properties (e.g., photophysical, electrochemical, and photoelectrochemical properties). In the past, the synthesis of azulene-based compounds is relatively inconvenient. Recently, there have been more and more reports about the synthesis strategies of the azulene-based compounds for finely tuning the physicochemical properties. In this article, we introduce several synthetic methods for kinds of azulene-based compounds which has unusual physicochemical properties. With these convenient methods and unique physicochemical properties, azulene-based compounds can be applied into many fields such as specific bioimaging, advanced molecular switches, organic field-effect transistor (OFET), organic light emitting diode (OLED), solar cells, and so forth. And these properties are also summarized here.