Photocatalysis articles within Nature

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    A previously undescribed photocatalytic approach enables the effective p-type and n-type doping of organic semiconductors at room temperature using only widely available weak dopants such as oxygen and triethylamine.

    • Wenlong Jin
    • , Chi-Yuan Yang
    •  & Simone Fabiano

  • Article |

    A couple-close approach used to build semisaturated ring systems from dual radical precursors allows sampling of regions of underexplored chemical space, leading to an annulation that can be used for late-stage functionalization of pharmaceutical scaffolds.

    • Alice Long
    • , Christian J. Oswood
    •  & David W. C. MacMillan

  • Article |

    We use bimolecular homolytic substitution catalysis to sort an electrophilic radical and a nucleophilic radical across an unactivated alkene, accelerating access to pharmaceutically relevant C(sp3)-rich molecules and defining a mechanistic approach for alkene dialkylation.

    • Johnny Z. Wang
    • , William L. Lyon
    •  & David W. C. MacMillan

  • Article |

    A self-adjustive catalytic system with nickel under visible-light-driven redox reaction conditions provides a general method for carbon–(hetero)atom cross-coupling reactions and is demonstrated for nine different bond-forming reactions.

    • Indrajit Ghosh
    • , Nikita Shlapakov
    •  & Burkhard König

  • Article |

    The synthesis of 1,3- and 1,2-disubstituted cubanes is achieved using a cyclobutadiene precursor and a photolytic carboxylation reaction, respectively, and copper-catalysed amination, arylation, alkylation and trifluoromethylation reactions have been developed enabling the use of cubanes as bioisosteres of benzenes in drug design.

    • Mario P. Wiesenfeldt
    • , James A. Rossi-Ashton
    •  & David W. C. MacMillan

  • Article |

    Installation of multiple C–O bonds by concurrent oxygenation of contiguous C–H bonds in a selective fashion is highly desirable, and this is achieved by repeated operation of a potent oxidative catalyst via electrophotocatalysis.

    • Tao Shen
    • , Yi-Lun Li
    •  & Tristan H. Lambert

  • Article |

    Triplet photoenzymes developed through genetic encoding and directed evolution result in excited-state photocatalysts that provide a valuable approach to enantioselective photochemical synthesis.

    • Ningning Sun
    • , Jianjian Huang
    •  & Yuzhou Wu

  • Article |

    Oxidative cleavage of alkenes is achieved using nitroarenes and light irradiation as an alternative to using ozone to break the carbon–carbon bonds, avoiding the explosive intermediates formed with ozone.

    • Alessandro Ruffoni
    • , Charlotte Hampton
    •  & Daniele Leonori

  • Article |

    This work introduces lightweight, leaf-like photoelectrochemical devices for unassisted water splitting and syngas production, which could be used in the fabrication of floating systems for solar fuel production.

    • Virgil Andrei
    • , Geani M. Ucoski
    •  & Erwin Reisner

  • Article |

    A highly chemoselective and enantioselective cross-electrophile coupling using ‘ene’-reductases is reported, and photoexcited enzymes demonstrate the ability to carry out reactions between electrophiles that are not known for small-molecule catalysis.

    • Haigen Fu
    • , Jingzhe Cao
    •  & Todd K. Hyster

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A protocol in which monomers are pre-organized using a reversible and removable urea linkage enables the production of covalent organic frameworks with higher crystallinity and porosity than those produced using standard approaches with randomly aligned monomers.

    • Weiwei Zhang
    • , Linjiang Chen
    •  & Andrew I. Cooper

  • Article |

    A metallaphotoredox-based cross-coupling platform is capable of activating a wide range of free alcohols using N-heterocyclic carbene salts, cleaving C–O bonds to form free carbon radicals that are then used to form new C–C bonds.

    • Zhe Dong
    •  & David W. C. MacMillan

  • Article |

    CO2 and ultraviolet light are used to initiate the p-type doping of spiro-OMeTAD:LiTFSI films, which show enhanced efficiencies when used as hole-transporting layers in solar cells and have shorter fabrication times compared with interlayers doped using conventional methods.

    • Jaemin Kong
    • , Yongwoo Shin
    •  & André D. Taylor

  • Article |

    Selective borylation of azines—nitrogen-containing aromatic heterocycles used in the synthesis of many pharmaceuticals—is made possible by forming a radical from an aminoborane using a photocatalyst.

    • Ji Hye Kim
    • , Timothée Constantin
    •  & Daniele Leonori

  • Article |

    Metal-free borylation of C(sp3)–H bonds by violet-light-induced hydrogen atom transfer is reported, demonstrating high selectivity for the substitution of methyl C–H bonds over other weaker C–H bonds.

    • Chao Shu
    • , Adam Noble
    •  & Varinder K. Aggarwal

  • Article |

    Water splitting with an internal quantum efficiency of almost unity is achieved using a modified semiconductor photocatalyst that selectively promotes the hydrogen and oxygen evolution reactions on separate crystal facets.

    • Tsuyoshi Takata
    • , Junzhe Jiang
    •  & Kazunari Domen

  • Article |

    Photoexcited acridine radical catalysts are found to have redox potentials more reducing than lithium, which is attributed to the population of higher-energy doublet excited states via a twisted intramolecular charge-transfer species.

    • Ian A. MacKenzie
    • , Leifeng Wang
    •  & David A. Nicewicz

  • Article |

    A one-step, three-component radical coupling of [1.1.1]propellane by a photoredox reaction mediated by a copper catalyst produces drug-like bicyclopentanes.

    • Xiaheng Zhang
    • , Russell T. Smith
    •  & David W. C. MacMillan

  • Letter |

    Photoredox transformations are achieved with infrared light by using triplet fusion upconversion that converts infrared into visible light, enabling the use of photoredox chemistry on larger scales and through barriers that are impenetrable by visible light.

    • Benjamin D. Ravetz
    • , Andrew B. Pun
    •  & Luis M. Campos

  • Letter |

    Direct coupling of aliphatic C–H nucleophiles to aryl electrophiles is described, through the combination of light-driven polyoxometalate hydrogen atom transfer and nickel catalysis.

    • Ian B. Perry
    • , Thomas F. Brewer
    •  & David W. C. MacMillan

  • Letter |

    A photocatalytic strategy is described that generates diazomethyl radicals as direct equivalents of carbynes, which are often too reactive to use, enabling the functionalization of a range of medically useful compounds.

    • Zhaofeng Wang
    • , Ana G. Herraiz
    •  & Marcos G. Suero

  • Review Article |

    This Review discusses recent developments in the combination of organocatalysis and photochemistry for the activation of molecules, which has enabled previously inaccessible reaction pathways and influenced many fields of chemical research.

    • Mattia Silvi
    •  & Paolo Melchiorre

  • Letter |

    Using single-molecule fluorescence imaging of photoelectrocatalysis, the charge-carrier activities on single TiO2 nanorods and the corresponding water-oxidation photocurrent are mapped at high spatiotemporal resolution, revealing the best catalytic sites and the most effective sites for depositing an oxygen evolution catalyst.

    • Justin B. Sambur
    • , Tai-Yen Chen
    •  & Peng Chen

  • Letter |

    The biochemical process of spin-centre shift is used to accomplish mild, non-traditional alkylation reactions using alcohols as radical precursors; this represents the first broadly applicable use of unactivated alcohols as latent alkylating reagents, achieved via the successful merger of photoredox and hydrogen atom transfer catalysis.

    • Jian Jin
    •  & David W. C. MacMillan

  • Letter |

    Despite advances in carbon–carbon fragment couplings, the ability to forge carbon–oxygen bonds in a general fashion via nickel catalysis has been largely unsuccessful; here, visible-light-excited photoredox catalysts are shown to provide transient access to Ni(iii) species that readily participate in reductive elimination, leading to carbon–oxygen coupling.

    • Jack A. Terrett
    • , James D. Cuthbertson
    •  & David W. C. MacMillan

  • Letter |

    Mapping the frontier-orbital interactions with atom specificity using X-ray laser-based femtosecond-resolution spectroscopy reveals that spin crossover and ligation determine the sub-picosecond excited-state dynamics of a transition-metal complex in solution.

    • Ph. Wernet
    • , K. Kunnus
    •  & A. Föhlisch

  • Letter |

    Photoredox and organic catalysis are combined to achieve broadly effective direct arylation of allylic carbon–hydrogen bonds under mild conditions; this carbon–carbon bond forming reaction readily accommodates a wide range of alkene and electron-deficient arene coupling partners.

    • James D. Cuthbertson
    •  & David W. C. MacMillan

  • Letter |

    A chiral iridium complex serves as a sensitizer for photoredox catalysis and at the same time provides very effective asymmetric induction for the enantioselective alkylation of 2-acyl imidazoles; the metal centre simultaneously serves as the exclusive source of chirality, the catalytically active Lewis acid centre, and the photoredox centre.

    • Haohua Huo
    • , Xiaodong Shen
    •  & Eric Meggers

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