The development of chiroptical molecular switches for
chiral sensing,
data communication, optical displays, chiral logic gates, and asymmetric
catalysis is currently a vibrant frontier of science and technology.
Herein, we report a practical artificial dynamic system based on a
1,2-diaxial atropisomer. Organocatalytic parallel kinetic resolution
allows the divergent synthesis of two sets of stereoisomers with vicinal
C–C and N–N axes from the same racemic single-axis substrates.
By simply varying the configuration of the single catalyst, all four
stereoisomers are accessible. The successive conduction of covalent
unlocking/locking and thermal-isomerization processes enables sequential
switching between all four atropisomeric states with electronic circular
dichroism signal reversal, providing an example of multistate chiroptical
molecular switches.