Small rings

Functional homo- and heteronuclear silicon rings

The main motivation for our interest in small silacycles is their potential use as precursors for silicon based materials. For example, Kumada et al. have shown that cyclopentasilane, the silicon analogue of cyclopentane, can be used for the preparation of an ink-jet printable silicon source.[Ref]

 

We apply our unsaturated anionic synthons in reactions with suitable electrophiles. Along these lines we obtained highly functional cyclotrisilanes such as 9 and heterocycles such as the tin-containig 10 and 11. Monochloro cyclotrisilanes such as 12 can be reduced to afford lithiated three-membered rings 13.