Strained metallocenophanes and related organometallic rings containing pi-hydrocarbon ligands and transition-metal centers

The structures, bonding, and ring-opening reactions of strained cyclic carbon-based molecules form a key component of standard textbooks. In contrast, the study of strained organometallic molecules containing transition metals is a much more recent development. A wealth of recent research has revealed fascinating nuances in terms of structure, bonding, and reactivity. Building on initial work on strained ferrocenophanes, a broad range of strained organometallic rings composed of a variety of different metals, pi-hydrocarbon ligands, and bridging elements has now been developed. Such strained species can potentially undergo ring-opening reactions to functionalize surfaces and ring-opening polymerization to form easily processed metallopolymers with properties determined by the presence of the metal and spacer. This Review summarizes the current state of knowledge on the preparation, structural characterization, electronic structure, and reactivity of strained organometallic rings with pi-hydrocarbon ligands and d-block metals.

Molecule intrinsic minimal basis sets. II. Bonding analyses for Si4H6 and Si2 to Si10

The method, introduced in the preceding paper, for recasting molecular self-consistent field (SCF) or density functional theory (DFT) orbitals in terms of intrinsic minimal bases of quasiatomic orbitals, which differ only little from the optimal free-atom minimal-basis orbitals, is used to elucidate the bonding in several silicon clusters. The applications show that the quasiatomic orbitals deviate from the minimal-basis SCF orbitals of the free atoms by only very small deformations and that the latter arise mainly from bonded neighbor atoms. The Mulliken population analysis in terms of the quasiatomic minimal-basis orbitals leads to a quantum mechanical interpretation of small-ring strain in terms of antibonding encroachments of localized molecular-orbitals and identifies the origin of the bond-stretch isomerization in Si4H6. In the virtual SCF/DFT orbital space, the method places the qualitative notion of virtual valence orbitals on a firm basis and provides an unambiguous ab initio identification of the frontier orbitals.