N−C axially chiral compounds have emerged recently as appealing motifs for drug design. However, the enantioselective synthesis of such molecules is still poorly developed and surprisingly no metal‐catalyzed atroposelective N‐arylations have been described. Herein, we disclose an unprecedented Cu‐catalyzed atroposelective N−C coupling that proceeds at room temperature. Such mild reaction conditions, which are a crucial parameter for atropostability of the newly generated products, are operative thanks to the use of hypervalent iodine reagents as a highly reactive coupling partners. A large panel of the N−C axially chiral compounds was afforded with very high enantioselectivity (up to >99 % ee) and good yields (up to 76 %). Post‐modifications of thus accessed atropisomeric compounds allows further expansion of the diversity of these appealing compounds.
Axially chiral C−N compounds are an emerging but scarcely investigated class of stereogenic molecules with potential applications as biologically active scaffolds and chiral ligands. The synthesis of these compounds is extremely challenging, and in particular, no metal-catalyzed asymmetric, intermolecular C−N coupling has been previously reported. Herein we disclose an intermolecular atropselective C−N coupling, occurring with excellent stereoselectivity. This Cucatalyzed transformation is based on the use of highly active coupling partners (i.e., chiral iodanes bearing a very cheap and traceless sulfoxide auxiliary). Use of such original ortho-sulfoxide iodanes enables this unprecedented coupling to occur at room temperature, guaranteeing high atropselectivity and atropselectivity of the coupling products under reaction conditions. Because of extensive possible postmodifications of the optically pure products, a panel of C−N axially chiral scaffolds can now be accessed.
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