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The utilization of visible light to mediate chemical reactions in fluid solutions has applications that range from solar fuel production to medicine and organic synthesis. These reactions are typically initiated by electron transfer between a photoexcited dye molecule (a photosensitizer) and a redox-active quencher to yield radical pairs that are intimately associated within a solvent cage. Many of these radicals undergo rapid thermodynamically favored “geminate” recombination and do not diffuse out of the solvent cage that surrounds them. Those that do escape the cage are useful reagents that may undergo subsequent reactions important to the above-mentioned applications. The cage escape process and the factors that determine the yields remain poorly understood despite decades of research motivated by their practical and fundamental importance. Herein, state-of-the-art research on light-induced electron transfer and cage escape that has appeared since the seminal 1972 review by J. P. Lorand entitled “The Cage Effect” is reviewed. This review also provides some background for those new to the field and discusses the cage escape process of both homolytic bond photodissociation and bimolecular light induced electron transfer reactions. The review concludes with some key goals and directions for future research that promise to elevate this very vibrant field to even greater heights. 

Ligands play a central role in dictating the electronic properties of metal complexes to which they are coordinated. A fundamental understanding of changes in ligand properties can be used as design principles for more efficient catalysts. Designing ligands that have multiple protonation states that will change the properties of the coordination complex would be useful as potential ways of controlling catalysis, for example, as an on/off switch where one redox state exists below thermodynamic potential and another exists above. Thus, phenol moieties built into strongly coordinating ligands, like that of tpyPhOH (4′-(4-hydroxyphenyl)-2,2′:6′,2′’-terpyridine) may provide such a handle. Herein, we report the electrochemical and spectral characterization, and the crystallographic and computational analysis of two ruthenium analogs: [Ru(tpy)(tpyPhOH)](PF6)2 and [Ru(tpyPhOH)2] (PF6)2 (tpy =2,2′:6′,2′’-terpyridine). Cyclic voltammetry and differential pulse voltammetry indicate that two redox events occur, one of which is pH independent and we hypothesize that these follow an electrochemical- chemical-electrochemical (ECE) mechanism. XRD results of the ruthenium complexes’ protonated forms are generally consistent with expected bond lengths and angles and are in agreement with computational modeling. The properties are compared to a previously reported analog that contains the –OH group directly connected to terpyridine, [Ru(tpyOH)2](PF6)2, where tpyOH is 4′-hydroxy-2,2′:6′,2′’-terpyridine, with some intriguing differences. Overall, these data indicate that the phenyl-substituent decouples the phenol such that it behaves both as an electron withdrawing substituent and a location for a ligand centered oxidation event to occur.