Chirality and Excited State Proton Transfer: From Sensing to Asymmetric Synthesis

摘要

Excited state proton transfer (ESPT) is a unique photochemical proceSS where the electron density shift of a molecule in the excited state dramatically decreases the pKa value of a proton donor site. A majority of ESPT research to date has focused on achiral molecules but there is growing interest in understand- ing/harneSSing ESPT to/from chiral molecules. this review summarizes and critically examines the literature to date describing the role of ESPT in enantioselective fluorescence sensing, asymmetric synthetic organic chemistry, and photo- isomerization of chiral molecules. Our goal is to show that despite ESPT of chiral molecules being a relatively new pursuit, there has been significant progreSS and even greater potential for ESPT in these and other applications yet to be realized.