The presence of fluorine atom(s) in a molecule makes the σ-hole potentials of surrounding atoms more positive and thus increases their tendencies to interact attractively with nucleophiles. This review shows that in the crystal structures of fluorinated derivatives of the Group 15 atoms, close contacts between Group 15 atoms and negative sites (e.g. lone pair possessing atoms and anions) are quite common. These close contacts are taken as indications of attractive interactions. The collection of single crystal X-ray structures analysed in this paper demonstrates that the ability of fluorinated atoms of Group 15 to work as electrophilic sites, namely to function as pnictogen bond donors, is fairly general. The directionalities and separations of these pninctogen bonds are convincing experimental evidences that linking a fluorine to a pnictogen atom increases its electrophilicity to the point that pnictogen bonding formation may become a determinant of the lattice structures in crystalline solids. Pnictogen bonding formation may become an heuristic principle for predicting some of the short contacts that are present in the crystal structures of compounds containing fluorinated atoms of Group 15, particularly when polyfluorinated. Pnictogen derivatives containing other moieties may also work as effective electrophilic sites and a convenient design of the used tectons may allow pnictogen bond to become a general and reliable tool in crystal engineering.

分子中氟原子的存在使周围原子的σ空穴电势更强，因此增加了它们与亲核试剂有吸引力地相互作用的趋势。该综述表明，在第15族原子的氟化衍生物的晶体结构中，第15族原子与负位点（例如，拥有原子和阴离子的孤对）之间的紧密接触是很普遍的。这些密切的联系被视为有吸引力的相互作用的指示。本文分析的单晶X射线结构的集合表明，第15组的氟化原子充当亲电位点（即充当光子键供体）的能力是相当普遍的。这些pninctogengen键的方向性和分离令人信服的实验证据表明，将氟连接到pgentogengen原子上会增加其亲电性，以至于pgentogengen键的形成可能成为结晶固体中晶格结构的决定因素。光子原键的形成可能成为一种启发式原理，用于预测存在于包含第15组氟化原子的化合物的晶体结构中的某些短接触，特别是在多氟化时。含有其他部分的光原衍生物也可以作为有效的亲电位点，所用构造的便捷设计可以使光原键成为晶体工程中通用且可靠的工具。