Engineering carbene rearrangements in crystals: from molecular information to solid-state reactivity.

Although severely restricted, reactions in crystals have delivered some of the most impressive examples of chemical control and provided an ideal medium for detailed mechanistic studies. However, to take full advantage of their potential and avoid their shortcomings, a systematic approach for the reliable design of reaction in crystals is required. To that end, strategies based on structural and energetic information contained at the molecular level have been explored with reactions involving carbene rearrangements.