Structural and Electronic Paradigms in Cluster Chemistry (Structure and Bonding, Volume 87)

The series Structure and Bonding publishes critical reviews on topics of research concerned with chemical structure and bonding. The scope of the series spans the entire Periodic Table and addresses structure and bonding issues associated with all of the elements. It also focuses attention on new and developing areas of modern structural and theoretical chemistry such as nanostructures, molecular electronics, designed molecular solids, surfaces, metal clusters and supramolecular structures. Physical and spectroscopic techniques used to determine, examine and model structures fall within the purview of Structure and Bonding to the extent that the focus is on the scientific results obtained and not on specialist information concerning the techniques themselves. Issues associated with the development of bonding models and generalizations that illuminate the reactivity pathways and rates of chemical processes are also relevant.

The individual volumes in the series are thematic. The goal of each volume is to give the reader, whether at a university or in industry, a comprehensive overview of an area where new insights are emerging that are of interest to a larger scientific audience. Thus each review within the volume critically surveys one aspect of that topic and places it within the context of the volume as a whole. The most significant developments of the last 5 to 10 years should be presented using selected examples to illustrate the principles discussed. A description of the physical basis of the experimental techniques that have been used to provide the primary data may also be appropriate, if it has not been covered in detail elsewhere. The coverage need not be exhaustive in data, but should rather be conceptual, concentrating on the new principles being developed that will allow the reader, who is not a specialist in the area covered, to understand the data presented. Discussion of possible future research directions in the area is welcomed.

It is 25 years since the seminal papers describing the relationships between the skeletal geometrics and closed shell electronic requirements of metal clusters were originally published. The electron counting rules which developed from these papers, are now to be found in all undergraduate inorganic textbooks. This volume provides a contemporary account of recent applications of the methodology and the mathematical foundations of the rules. In addition it describes how it is possible to accomondate acception to the rules within a wider framework. The authors are the foremost authorities in the field and give a broad introduction to the area.
Chapters in this volume:
- Mathematical cluster chemistry
- Metal-metal interactions in transition metal clusters with π-donor ligands
- Electron count versus structural arrangement in clusters based on a cubic transition metal core with bridging main group elements
- Metallaboranes
- Clusters with interstitial atoms from the p-block: How do Wade's rules handle them?
- Diverse naked clusters of the heavy main-group elements. Electronic regularities and analogies