A <i>m</i>-quaterphenyl probe for absolute configurational assignments of primary and secondary amines

We report a method for determining the absolute configurations of chiral amino alcohols, amino acid esters, and secondary amines through the combined use of a <i>m</i>-quaterphenyl probe <b>1</b> and theoretical calculations. The probe <b>1</b> is covalently attached to chiral amines to form conjugates that exhibit exciton-coupled circular dichroism (ECCD) in the <i>m</i>-quaterphenyl chromophores. The calculated ratios of the <i>P</i> and <i>M</i> conformers, obtained via DFT calculations, show a correlation with both the sign and intensity of the experimentally observed CD spectra.