Synthetic Strategies of Carbon Nanobelts and Beyond

Carbon nanobelts (CNBs) with aesthetically appealing molecular structures and outstanding physical properties have attracted more and more attentions from the scientific community due to their potential applications in synthetic materials, host-guest chemistry, optoelectronics, and so on. The synthesis of CNBs at different stages was overviewed and some representative breakthroughs and advances in synthetic strategies were highlighted and discussed. The key issue for the synthesis of CNBs is how to construct curved structures with high strain energy. We not only proposed a few unconventional CNBs as the promising target molecules, but also pointed out the bottom-up synthesis of conjugated tubular segments of carbon nanotubes sharing similar properties as carbon nanotubes is the next focus in this emerging area.