Editorial [Hot Topic: Organic Functional Materials Applying to Optoelectronics (Guest Editor: Ruzhou Zhang)]

The present issue of Current Organic Chemistry is devoted to organic functional materials with special emphasis on material design, synthesis and relationship between structure-application performance. The authors provide us an up-to-date discussion on the special application area, such as PLED, OFET, DSSCs and photochromism. Polyfluorene-based conjugated polyelectrolytes (CPs) exhibit excellent unique characteristics different from the traditional conjugated polymers used in PLEDs, which is extensively reviewed by Prof. Yong Cao et. al. at South China University of Technology. The review was focusing on the design, synthesis of the material and their application in PLEDs. And then, Dr. Wan, from California University at Los Angeles show us recent progress on molecular design and synthesis of polycyclic aromatic compounds, such as oligoarenes, oligoacenes, TTF derivatives and disc-like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, for Organic Field-effect Transistors (OFET). Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have attracted considerable attention in both academic and industrial community as a cost-effective alternative to conventional solar cells. Development of both metal-free organic dye and metal-ligand complexes for DSSCs have reached great achievements on device performance. Both kinds of materials applying to DSSCs are summarized by Prof. Li et al, from Fudan University and Prof. Guo et al, from Zhengzhou University, respectively and showing us what has been going on in the field. Due to potential photonic applications, photochromism is another hot point in the community. Diarylethene has been studied extensively. Dr. Chen at General Electric summarized the progress on design, synthesis and its photochromic performance of diarylethenes.