A New Class of Biodegradable Organic Optoelectronic Materials: α-Oligofurans

Organic optoelectronic materials have received considerable attention due to their great potentials in electronic devices, such as organic field-effect transistors (OFETs), organic light-emitting diodes (OLED) and organic photovoltaic cells (OPV). Besides, their fascinating properties of flexibility, biocompatibility, molecular diversity, low-cost and solution processability bring new opportunities in bioelectronics in the past decade. While almost all known organic optoelectronic materials are obtained from unrenewable fossil resources and nondegradable, a new family of organic optoelectronic materials is now emerging, which can be obtained from green plants and are biodegradable. Meanwhile, they exhibit excellent optoelectronic properties. This review summarized the synthesis and important molecular properties of this new class of biodegradable organic optoelectronic materials: α-oligofurans. Recent progress of furan-based materials and the existing challenges are also discussed to stimulate further advances in the study of this class of materials.