Light in Gold Catalysis

Within the wide family of gold-catalyzed reactions, gold photocatalysis intrinsically features unique elementary steps. When gold catalysis meets photocatalysis, a valence change of the gold center can easily be achieved via electron transfer and radical addition, avoiding the use of stoichiometric sacrificial external oxidants. The excellent compatibility of radicals with gold catalysts opens the door to a series of important organic transformations, including redox-neutral C–C and C–X coupling, C–H activation, and formal radical–radical cross-coupling. The photocatalysis with gold complexes nicely complements the existing photoredox catalysis strategies and also opens a new avenue for gold chemistry. This review covers the achieved transformations for both mononuclear gold(I) catalysts (with and without a photosensitizer) and dinuclear gold(I) photocatalysts. Various fascinating methodologies, their value for organic chemists, and the current mechanistic understanding are discussed. The most recent examples also demonstrate the feasibility of both, mononuclear and dinuclear gold(I) complexes to participate in excited state energy transfer (EnT), rather than electron transfer. The rare applications of gold(III) photocatalysts, both homogeneous and heterogeneous, are also summarized.