@article{WeiserCuiDewhurstetal.2023, author = {Weiser, Jonas and Cui, Jingjing and Dewhurst, Rian D. and Braunschweig, Holger and Engels, Bernd and Fantuzzi, Felipe}, title = {Structure and bonding of proximity-enforced main-group dimers stabilized by a rigid naphthyridine diimine ligand}, series = {Journal of Computational Chemistry}, volume = {44}, journal = {Journal of Computational Chemistry}, number = {3}, doi = {10.1002/jcc.26994}, url = {http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-312586}, pages = {456 -- 467}, year = {2023}, abstract = {The development of ligands capable of effectively stabilizing highly reactive main-group species has led to the experimental realization of a variety of systems with fascinating properties. In this work, we computationally investigate the electronic, structural, energetic, and bonding features of proximity-enforced group 13-15 homodimers stabilized by a rigid expanded pincer ligand based on the 1,8-naphthyridine (napy) core. We show that the redox-active naphthyridine diimine (NDI) ligand enables a wide variety of structural motifs and element-element interaction modes, the latter ranging from isolated, element-centered lone pairs (e.g., E = Si, Ge) to cases where through-space π bonds (E = Pb), element-element multiple bonds (E = P, As) and biradical ground states (E = N) are observed. Our results hint at the feasibility of NDI-E2 species as viable synthetic targets, highlighting the versatility and potential applications of napy-based ligands in main-group chemistry.}, language = {en} }