Photoredox catalysis is a branch of photochemistry that uses single-electron transfer. Photoredox catalysts are generally drawn from three classes of materials: transition-metal complexes, organic dyes, and semiconductors. While organic photoredox catalysts were dominant throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, soluble transition-metal complexes are more commonly used today.

Sensitizers absorb light to give redox-active excited states. For many metal-based sensitizers, excitation is realized as a metal-to-ligand charge transfer, whereby an electron moves from the metal (e.g., a d orbital) to an orbital localized on the ligands (e.g. the π* orbital of an aromatic ligand). This initial excited electronic state relaxes to a singlet excited state through internal conversion, a process where energy is dissipated as vibrational energy (heat) rather than as electromagnetic radiation. This singlet excited state can relax further by two distinct processes: the catalyst may fluoresce, radiating a photon and returning to the original singlet ground state, or it can move to the lowest energy triplet excited state (a state where two unpaired electrons have the same spin) by a second non-radiative process termed intersystem crossing.

Direct relaxation of the excited triplet to the ground state, termed phosphorescence, requires both emission of a photon and inversion of the spin of the excited electron. This pathway is slow because it is spin-forbidden so the triplet excited state has a substantial average lifetime. For the common photosensitizer, tris-(2,2’-bipyridyl)ruthenium (abbreviated as [Ru(bipy)₃]²⁺ or [Ru(bpy)₃]²⁺), the lifetime of the triplet excited state is approximately 1100 ns. This lifetime is sufficient for other relaxation pathways (specifically, electron-transfer pathways) to occur before decay of the catalyst to its ground state.

The long-lived triplet excited state accessible by photoexcitation is both a more potent reducing agent and a more potent oxidizing agent than the ground state of the catalyst. Since sensitizer is coordinatively saturated, electron transfer must occur by an outer sphere process, where the electron tunnels between the catalyst and the substrate.

Marcus' theory of outer sphere electron transfer predicts that such a tunneling process will occur most quickly in systems where the electron transfer is thermodynamically favorable (i.e. between strong reductants and oxidants) and where the electron transfer has a low intrinsic barrier.

The intrinsic barrier of electron transfer derives from the Franck–Condon principle, stating that electronic transition takes place more quickly given greater overlap between the initial and final electronic states. Interpreted loosely, this principle suggests that the barrier of an electronic transition is related to the degree to which the system seeks to reorganize. For an electronic transition with a system, the barrier is related to the "overlap" between the initial and final wave functions of the excited electron–i.e. the degree to which the electron needs to "move" in the transition.

In an intermolecular electron transfer, a similar role is played by the degree to which the nuclei seek to move in response to the change in their new electronic environment. Immediately after electron transfer, the nuclear arrangement of the molecule, previously an equilibrium, now represents a vibrationally excited state and must relax to its new equilibrium geometry. Rigid systems, whose geometry is not greatly dependent on oxidation state, therefore experience less vibrational excitation during electron transfer, and have a lower intrinsic barrier. Photocatalysts such as [Ru(bipy)₃]²⁺, are held in a rigid arrangement by flat, bidentate ligands arranged in an octahedral geometry around the metal center. Therefore, the complex does not undergo much reorganization during electron transfer. Since electron transfer of these complexes is fast, it is likely to take place within the duration of the catalyst's active state, i.e. during the lifetime of the triplet excited state.

To regenerate the ground state, the catalyst must participate in a second outer-sphere electron transfer. In many cases, this electron transfer takes place with a stoichiometric two-electron reductant or oxidant, although in some cases this step involves a second reagent.