Chemistry as a prism: a review of light-emitting materials having tunable emission wavelengths.

Photoluminescent materials have been extensively applied in various fields of science because of their numerous advantages, such as excellent sensitivity, good specificity, a large linear range of analysis, ease of handling, and so on. Many strategies have been used to understand and manipulate the photophysical properties of photoluminescent materials. This Focus Review describes recent progress focused on tuning the photophysical properties, especially the emission wavelengths of pi-conjugated oligomers, photoluminescent organometallic complexes, and fluorescent organic dyes by chemical modification.