Phospha-helicenes. Development of a new class of chiral phosphorus compounds – HelPhos

Aim of this project is the development of phosphahelicenes as a new family of helical compounds.
The targeted phosphahelicenes are ortho-fused polyaromatic compounds terminated by a phosphole or benzophosphole unit.
This project is founded on the well-recognized importance of helicenes in areas such as molecular recognition, catalysis and material science. We believe that phospha-helicenes have the potential of expanding the application fields of helicenes to a large extent, since the various oxidation states and coordinating ability of phosphorus will enable almost infinite modulations and optimization of the physicochemical properties. Surprisingly so far, except for our own papers, only three papers have been published in the field of phospha-helicenes and, therefore, the potential of these compounds can be considered as largely unexplored. Thus, with the aim of expanding the family we intend to establish several new, general and efficient synthetic approaches and to investigate then the properties of the newly produced helical derivatives. Enantiopure derivatives will be targeted as privileged compounds.
Our synthetic work will be oriented toward two main objectives which are intended to take advantage from the known peculiar properties of helicenes: (a) the use of phospha-helicenes in enantioselective organometallic catalysis, with special attention to gold(I) promoted cyclization reactions; (b) the use of phosphahelicenes as chiral dopants for OLEDs and other optoelectronic devices. These objectives fit with the well-established expertise of the partner involved in the project.