Enantiomeric excess exciting light

In a pioneering study, Zandomeneghi and Cavazza showed that the [2 + 2]-photocycloaddition of racemic 4-acetyloxy-2-cydopentenone can lead to a small, but detectable, enantiomeric excess (ee) of the product if circularly polarized light (CPL) is used as an irradiation source. By preferential excitation of the (—(-antipode of the cyclopentenone with 1-CPL (351-363 nm laser) in the presence of acetylene, an... 

Photochemical reactions—asymmetric as well as nonasymmetric ones—take their outset from electronically excited states of the reactant. In this chapter, direct cpl excitation is covered, sensitized reactions are discussed in Chap. 4. Asymmetric photochemistry produces new chirality in a reaction system. The cpl-induced reactions are often called absolute asymmetric, as there is no net chirality in the reactants. This discriminates asymmetric photochemistry from the photochemistry of chiral molecules, which can be induced by nonpolarized light. The newly created chirality in cpl-induced reactions becomes apparent in an excess of the amount of one reactant or product enantiomer over the other. This enantiomeric excess (ee) in a mixture of R and S enantiomers is defined as... 

Excitation with circularly polarized light (CPL) is an interesting direct method of asymmetric synthesis, which is based on preferential excitation of one of the enantiomers thanks to a difference in the molar absorption coefficients towards left or right CPL at a given wavelength.585 Unfortunately, only a small enantiomeric excess (ee) can be generated by this method. Some scientists, nevertheless, believe that... 

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