Optical Activity and Helicity Enhancement of Highly Sensitive Dinaphthylmethane-Based Stereodynamic Probes for Secondary Alcohols

Chirality transfer from circular dichroism (CD)-silent secondary alcohol (inductor) to the stereodynamic bichromophoric di(1-naphthyl) methane probe (reporter) led to the generation of intense, induced exciton-type Cotton effects (CEs) in the ultraviolet-visible absorption region. The di(1-naphthyl) methane probe exhibits extraordinarily high sensitivity to even small structural variations of the alcohol skeleton, that is, the probe is able to distinguish between an oxygen atom and a methylene group in a 3-hydroxytetrahydrofurane skeleton. Signs and amplitudes of the exciton couplets of B-1(b) electronic transition might be correlated with the type of stereo-differentiating parts of the molecule flanking the stereogenic center, however, not with the absolute configuration. The origin of the induced CEs was established by means of experimental and theoretical methods. As a result, a mechanism of chirality transfer from the permanent stereogenic center to the bichromophore is proposed.