ABSTRACT
For a long time there existed only singular, scattered investigations
on homogeneous gold-catalyzed reactions. Following a prepeak of
activity between 1986 and 1998 on a very specific reactivity pattern,
from the year 2000 onward an exponential growth of the field
was observed. Now, 14 years later, the field has stabilized at high
numbers of yearly publications, but most important, still many
new discoveries are being published. These discoveries do not just
represent minor variations, but sometimes entirely new reactivity
patterns, unprecedented in the field of organometallic chemistry, are
still found. A shift that was observed only in the last years is that
after a strong focus on methodology development and mechanistic
studies in the early phase, now increasingly applications in synthesis
(both total synthesis of natural products and synthetic applications
in the field of compounds formaterial science) are reported. Another
new focus is the development of ligands for highly active catalysts
[1].
