Stilbene stilbene shining bright: ?-Cyanostilbenes as functional organic materials

pi-Conjugated organic molecules with suitable donor or acceptor substituents have evolved as an attractive platform for optoelectronic or biological applications. alpha-cyanostilbenes, due to their characteristic elastic twist, exhibit excellent photophysical properties and form self-assemblies in favorable solvent media. The ease of synthesis and capability to introduce several desired substituents has allowed their extensive use as stimuli-responsive materials. The uniqueness of these scaffolds is the observance of characteristically enhanced emission in aqueous media due to the formation of nanoparticles or aggregates. The enhanced emission is in contrast to the observation of quenched emission for many fluorophores which limits their aqueous media applications. Such a distinct emission behavior of alpha-cyanostilbene derivatives has led to their extensive photophysical investigations in solution and solid-state emissive properties yielding remarkable structural or morphological changes in response to pressure, heat, light radiation or the presence of a solvent. This article briefly reviews the functional properties of cyanostilbenes.