A copper-catalyzed process has been developed for the N-arylation reaction under very mild conditions in the absence of additional ligand. This protocol could not only tolerate an array of thermally sensitive functional groups, but also achieve high chemoselectivity.

A palladium-catalyzed regioselective decarboxylative direct C-H arylation of boron dipyrromethenes (BODIPYs) at the 2,6-positions has been developed as a late-stage approach to rapidly assemble a diversity-oriented BODIPY library. With the complement of this protocol, the direct C-H arylation of BODIPYs becomes regiocontrollable at α- and β-positions. A new type of indole-fused BODIPY exhibiting bright red/NIR fluorescence with a large molar extinction coefficient (145,500 M(-1) cm(-1)) and a high quantum yield (71%) has been synthesized for the first time.

Self-assembly of the conformationally flexible bismethylimidazolyl ligands with Pd(OAc)(2) is described. Depending on whether the ligands provide the hydrogen bonding donor, a switching of metal-organic vesicles to globular networks gelating solvents is achieved. The metallogels exhibit catalytic activity for the cross-coupling of indole with phenyl boronic acid.

It is significantly challenging to collect more light and simultaneously avoid the dye aggregation in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). This work addresses the significance of the intensity, rather than just the traditionally emphasized broadness, of the absorption band in developing DSSC sensitizers. With the assistant of calculating the oscillator strength of the first transition, the indoline-conjugated porphyrin sensitizer CM-b is screened out to have an impressively large Q x molar absorptivity and thus an improved light harvesting ability together with suppressed aggregation in DSSCs. As a result, an overall efficiency of 10.7% for iodine-based DSSC is achieved, which is a record for non-ruthenium iodine-based DSSCs in the absence of a cosensitizer and a coabsorbate.