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The advance of materials chemistry has influenced significantly the lifestyle of mankind. By virtue of their fascinating physicochemical nature – including ultrasmall size (<10 nm), rich functional groups, fluorescence, chemical stability, biocompatibility, and nontoxicity – carbon dots have been acclaimed as another epoch-making carbon-based nanomaterial following on from fullerene, nanotubes, and graphene. However, the field of carbon dot-based materials chemistry remains incomplete because of their wide structural diversity, meaning that much fundamental knowledge still needs to be uncovered. Herein, this review proposed several novel viewpoints in term of carbon dot-based material chemistry, including the development history, classification, design principle and applications of carbon dots-based materials. Finally, several sound prospects in this fascinating filed are also given.