Applications of chiroptical spectroscopy to coordination compounds

•Characteristics and applicability ranges of electronic and vibrational chiroptical methods are discussed.•Typical spectroscopic experiments in coordination chemistry are overviewed and documented on several examples.•The coupling of the chirality with other optical, electrical, and magnetic properties often leads to new multi-functional materials of industrial importance.

Chiroptical methods represent indispensable tools for structural studies of chiral coordination compounds. Numerous applications in asymmetric catalysis, chiral recognition, chiral materials, and supramolecules stabilized by metals have fuelled their ongoing development. Materials derived from chiral coordination compounds have attracted considerable interest due to the possibility to fine-tune their physical properties through versatile chemical synthesis. This review provides an overview of the applicability range of chiroptical methods as a principle tool for chirality investigation, and typical applications of chiral coordination chemistry. The potential of electronic and vibrational chiroptical methods in the design and characterization of coordination compounds is discussed. The electronic optical activity in the form of circular dichroism (CD) continues to be the most frequent tool in stereo-chemical analysis. The potential of vibrational optical activity (VOA) for chiral coordination compounds is still poorly explored, especially when compared with VOA's role in organic chemistry and biochemistry. However, the vibrational region can often provide unique and more detailed information than the electronic methods, because of higher spectroscopic resolution, reduced dependence on characteristic chromophores, and better reproducibility of the spectra by theoretical methods.