The advent of chiral diene ligands represents an important new development in asymmetric catalysis. Such ligands confer higher activities and enantioselectivities than phosphorus ligands in rhodium-catalyzed asymmetric addition reactions. 1–7 The high efficiency of chiral diene ligands has been investigated through mechanistic and kinetic studies, 8 and there have been limited studies aimed at the steric 9 and electronic modification 10,11 of these ligands. Very ...
