Remarkably high asymmetric amplification in the chiral lanthanide complex-catalyzed hetero-Diels-Alder reaction: first example of the nonlinear effect in ML3 system

[reaction: see text] A remarkably high asymmetric amplification was realized in the Yb[(R)-BNP]3-catalyzed hetero-Diels-Alder reaction as the first example in the metal/chiral ligand 1:3 system. The mechanism may be explained by the autogenetic formation of the enantiopure complex as the most active catalyst. The enantiomer-discriminative formation of homochiral ML3 complexes is quite general within the lanthanide metal ions with similar ionic radii to that of the ytterbium ion.