Heteroatom-contained carbon-rich macrocycles and carbon nanobelts: Synthesis, molecular architectures, characteristics and applications

Carbon-rich macrocycles and nanobelts have attracted considerable attention for decades because their aesthetically molecular structures, excellent physical properties, and potential applications as precursor to construct carbon-based materials or macrocyclic hosts in supramolecular chemistry. Introduction of heteroatom into carbon-rich macrocycles is a popular strategy to regulate their electronic structure, which can endow its new function and application. In recent years, heteroatom-contained carbon-rich macrocycles and nanobelts with increasingly diversified structures and properties have become a new hot spot in the field of supramolecular and material science. This review focuses on the development of carbon-rich macrocycles and belt in recent years, including their design and synthesis, photophysical characteristics, coordination chemistry, etc.