Further enhancing the performance and stability of inverted perovskite solar cells (PSCs) is crucial for their commercialization. We report that the functionalization of multication and halide perovskite interfaces with an organometallic compound, ferrocenyl-bis-thiophene-2-carboxylate (FcTc ₂ ), simultaneously enhanced the efficiency and stability of inverted PSCs. The resultant devices achieved a power conversion efficiency of 25.0% and maintained >98% of their initial efficiency after continuously operating at the maximum power point for 1500 hours under simulated AM1.5 illumination. Moreover, the FcTc ₂ -functionalized devices passed the international standards for mature photovoltaics (IEC61215:2016) and have exhibited high stability under the damp heat test (85°C and 85% relative humidity).

Magnetic Resonance Imaging is perhaps the most important and prominent technique in diagnostic clinical medicine and biomedical research. Its success and development as an imaging technique has been aided by the characteristics of contrast agents that enhance signal intensities and improve specificity. Gadolinium(III) remains the dominant starting material for contrast agent design but other lanthanide ions (and other oxidation states i.e. +2) are also being increasingly investigated as alternatives to gadolinium(III) within laboratory conditions. This critical review provides a concise summary of the MRI-active gadolinium(III) complexes to date – their pros and cons, an outline of contrast agents based on other lanthanide ions (e.g. europium, dysprosium), and directs the reader to newer, more speculative areas of lanthanide-containing contrast agent design.

Interest in the chemistry of ferrocene remains intense, largely due to applications within catalysis. New synthetic routes to unsymmetrical ferrocene ligands have provided another facet to this area, as substituents can be designed to be electronically- and/or sterically-distinct in order to affect the environment around the catalytically-active metal centre. This critical review provides a concise summary of the synthetic routes that have been applied to the synthesis of unsymmetrical ferrocene ligands, along with a systematic survey of the applications of these ligands in homogeneous catalysis. The aim is to help the reader select a suitable ferrocenediyl ligand for a particular synthetic application, and in the synthesis of ligands that require particular structural and/or electronic features. (186 references.)

Molecular or personalised medicine is the future of patient management and healthcare, and molecular imaging plays a key role towards this goal. However, amongst molecular imaging techniques, no single modality is perfect and sufficient to gain all the necessary information. For instance, optical fluorescence imaging is difficult to quantify—especially in tissue more than a few millimetres in depth within a subject; magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has superb resolution but low sensitivity and positron emission tomography (PET) has very high sensitivity but poor resolution. The combination of multiple molecular imaging techniques can therefore offer synergistic advantages over any modality alone. However, the problem cannot be solved by simply adding two different classes of imaging probes together, unless they happen to have identical pharmacodynamic properties. Therefore, multi-modal contrast agents or imaging probes have been developed to solve this problem. Despite the great wealth of information that such probes can provide, their development is far from trivial and represents an important challenge to synthetic chemists. In this feature article, we provide an overview of recent findings in the synthesis, evaluation and application of dual-modality molecular imaging probes.

Gadolinium(III) complexes have been widely utilised as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) contrast agents for decades. In recent years however, concerns have developed about their toxicity, believed to derive from demetallation of the complexes in vivo, and the relatively large quantities of compound required for a successful scan. Recent efforts have sought to enhance the relaxivity of trivalent gadolinium complexes without sacrificing their stability. This review aims to examine the strategic design of ligands synthesised for this purpose, provide an overview of recent successes in gadolinium-based contrast agent development and assess the requirements for clinical translation.