Pentafluorosulfanyl group: an emerging tool in optoelectronic materials

The pentafluorosulfanyl (SF5) moiety is a lesser known and underutilized functional group that displays high electronegativity, chemical and thermal stability, and low surface energy, among other useful properties. Despite being around for almost 60 years, practical application of the unique SF5 group in various areas of chemistry has only recently picked up, which is mostly due to longstanding challenges associated with its synthetic accessibility. While most of the latest attention involving the use of SF5 has been in medicinal chemistry, it has also started to feature much more frequently in functional materials design, especially in the area of optoelectronic materials. This review will describe the ways in which the distinctive properties of SF5 have been harnessed to tune the optoelectronic character of different classes of functional materials, starting with the earliest examples from the late 1990s to the intensive research efforts in recent years.