ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses what type of chiral photosensitizer is applied to stereoselective photoinduced electron transfer reaction, what type of substrate is used, and what type of chiral functional group is introduced to these compounds to construct a chiral photosensitizer. The stereoselectivity was certainly observed in the photoinduced electron transfer reactions of chiral ruthenium(II) complexes with chiral viologen and Co(III) complexes. One enantiomer isomerizes to the other one under the influence of a chiral environment, if the racemic molecule is configurationally labile. Since the oxidative quenching of a homochiral pair occurs more rapidly than that of a heterochiral pair, the encounter complex of homochiral pair would be more stable than that of the heterochiral pair. Since the disproportionation is mainly controlled by the comproportionation rate constant, which is small for the strong interaction in a closed conformation, the reported results suggest that the homochiral pair adduct involves a stronger intermolecular interaction than the heterochiral pair adduct.
