Anthracene-Containing Metallacycles and Metallacages: Structures, Properties, and Applications

Due to its highly conjugated panel-like structure and unique photophysical chemical features, anthracene has been widely used for fabricating attractive functional supramolecular assemblies, including two-dimensional metallacycles three-dimensional metallacages. The embedded anthracenes in these assemblies often show synergistic effects on enhancing the desired luminescent properties. This review focuses metallasupramolecular architectures with anthracene-containing building blocks, as well their applications host-guest chemistry, stimulus response, molecular sensing, light harvesting, biomedical science.