Naphthalene and its Derivatives: Efficient Fluorescence Probes for Detecting and Imaging Purposes

Naphthalene, white crystalline solid having polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon with characteristic mothball order is naturally present in crucial oils of various plants. Naphthalene derivatives are extensive drug resources and are use as wetting agents, surfactants and as insecticides. These derivatives exhibit unique photo physical and chemical properties. These characteristics make them the most studied group of organic compounds. Naphthalene dyes have rigid plane and large π-electron conjugation. Therefor they have high quantum yield and excellent photostability. Naphthalene based fluorescence probes due to hydrophobic nature exhibit excellent sensing and selectivity properties towards anions and cations and also used as a part of target biomolecules. In conjugated probe system, introducing naphthalene moiety caused improvement in photo-stability. Therefore among various conjugated framework, naphthalene derivatives are considered excellent candidate for the construction of organic electronic appliances. These derivatives are useful for a variety of applications owing to their strong fluorescence, electroactivity and photostability. This article is based upon investigation of photophysical properties of naphthalene derivatives and fluorescence detecting probe of naphthalene. For photophysical properties the techniques under investigation are UV visible spectroscopy and fluorescence spectroscopy. Concentration dependent spectra and solvatochromic shifts on UV visible spectra are also part of discussion.