Helicene Derivatives with Circularly Polarized Luminescence

Chiral compounds with circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) properties have attracted great attention and interest in recent years for their wide potential applications in 3D information displays, quantum communication, spintronics information storage, CPL lasers, nonlinear optics, biological probes, and other fields. Among the existing chiral luminescent molecular materials, helicene derivatives with unique twisted extended π-conjugated molecular structures, which exhibit special helical chirality and excellent CPL properties, are the most promising. A chiral helix has also proven to be a valuable structural design for exploring small organic molecules with CPL properties. This chapter summarizes the recent development of helicenes and their derivatives including carbohelicenes, heterohelicenes, and metal helicene derivatives with circularly polarized luminescent properties.