Driving Feringa Motors with Visible Light by Intermolecular Singlet Energy Transfer from a Commercial [Ru(bpy)3]2+ Photosensitizer

We herein report that a commercialized photosensitizer, Ru(bpy)3Cl2, can be successfully employed to "uphill" drive the rotation of Feringa motors via a singlet rather than an intuitive triplet intermolecular energy transfer mechanism, offering new insights into the sensitization strategy to power Feringa motors with more biocompatible light sources.