Coumarins in polymers: From light harvesting to photo-cross-linkable tissue scaffolds

Coumarins exhibit intriguing properties, including conventional reaction chemistry to incorporate the groups on a number of different base molecules, tunable absorbance and fluorescence spectra, and the ability to photoreversibly dimerize. A review is given of the use of coumarin and coumarin derivatives in polymers. First, an overview of coumarin and coumarin derivatives is presented. Second, the use of coumarin-containing polymers in electro-optical studies, the development of photoreversible polymer systems, the use of coumarin in biopolymer studies, and the use of coumarins in other systems are discussed.