Synthetic Routes to Silsesquioxane-Based Systems as Photoactive Materials and Their Precursors

Over the past two decades, organic optoelectronic materials have been considered very promising. The attractiveness of this group of compounds, regardless of their undisputable application potential, lies in the possibility of their use in the construction of organic-inorganic hybrid materials. This class of frameworks also considers nanostructural polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxanes (POSSs) with organic coronae and precisely defined organic architectures between dispersed rigid silica cores. A significant number of papers on the design and development of POSS-based organic optoelectronic as well as photoluminescent (PL) materials have been published recently. In view of the scientific literature abounding with numerous examples of their application (i.e., as OLEDs), the aim of this review is to present efficient synthetic pathways leading to the formation of nanocomposite materials based on silsesquioxane systems that contain organic chromophores of complex nature. A summary of stoichiometric and predominantly catalytic methods for these silsesquioxane-based systems to be applied in the construction of photoactive materials or their precursors is given.