Subphthalocyanine, as a typical contracted analogue of phthalocyanine, exhibits novel cone structure, excellent luminescent properties and high flexibility of modification, which enables it as a new type of fluorescent dye with great research prospects. It has been proved that simple modifications of the axial, peripheral or central ring structure of subphthalocyanine can effectively regulate its physical and chemical properties, such as solubility, absorption/fluorescence emission, fluorescence quantum yield and singlet oxygen yield, and these properties have attracted extensive attentions from chemists in recent years. This review introduces the structures, properties and research significance of subphthalocyanine. Then, the progress in the synthesis, the relationship between properties and molecular structure of subphthalocyanin, and their applications in the area of biochemistry, material chemistry and environmental chemistry are reviewed emphatically. Finally, the development status of subphthalocyanine is summarized, and the further development of subphthalocyanine is discussed and proposed. Keywords subphthalocyanine; structures; photoelectric properties; application 早在 20 世纪初, 日本著名化学家 Meller 和 Ossko [1] 在合成酞菁的过程中就偶然得到了亚酞菁. 随后科学家 们通过 X 射线单晶衍射分析实验证实了亚酞菁的结 构 [2] , 该发现为酞菁衍生物的发展开辟了新的研究方向. 与酞菁相比, 亚酞菁具有类似的共轭体系和光电性质, 在离子检测、有机太阳能电池、光敏剂、化学传感器、 光动力治疗癌症等领域有广阔的应用前景 [3][4] , 因此本 文主要综述了亚酞菁的研究进展.