Understanding of multimetallic cluster growth.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 26805602.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms10480 and PMC identifier 4737759.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
The elucidation of formation mechanisms is mandatory for understanding and planning of synthetic routes. For (bio-)organic and organometallic compounds, this has long been realized even for very complicated molecules, whereas the formation of ligand-free inorganic molecules has widely remained a black box to date. This is due to poor structural relationships between reactants and products and the lack of structurally related intermediates--due to the comparably high coordination flexibility of involved atoms. Here we report on investigations of the stepwise formation of multimetallic clusters, based on a series of crystal structures and complementary quantum-chemical studies of (Ge2As2)(2-), (Ge7As2)(2-), [Ta@Ge6As4](3-), [Ta@Ge8As4](3-) and [Ta@Ge8As6](3-). The study makes use of efficient quantum-chemical tools, enabling the first detailed screening of the energy hypersurface along the formation of ligand-free inorganic species for a semi-quantitative picture. The results can be generalized for an entire family of multimetallic clusters.