Pure and Applied Chemistry

Abstract: A rapidly developing area of organometallic chemistry centers on polynuclear metal coordination compounds having specified, highly symmetric geometries such as squares, triangles, rectangles, or rigid rods. Interest in such molecules arises in part from their unusual, aesthetically appealing structures, and on the possibilities for assembling them into extended systems having useful electronic, optical, magnetic, catalytic, or other properties. Given their characteristic thermal and oxidative stability, chemical versatility, and relatively low-bulk, metallocene-like steric requirements, small metallacarboranes are attractive candidates as building blocks for such structures. Recent work in our laboratory on the controlled substitution and linkage of these clusters has opened the way to some new metallacarborane “designer ”chemistry that is described in this article.