Journal of the American Chemical Society, Vol.139, No.10, 3861-3867, 2017
Synthesis of Quinoidal Fused Oligosiloles by Rhodium-Catalyzed Stitching Reaction and Theoretical Investigation of Their Properties
New quinoidal fused oligosiloles containing an even number of silole units have been synthesized by a rhodium-catalyzed stitching reaction. Employing [RhCl(tfb)](2), as the catalyst significantly improved the stitching efficiency, and up to six siloles could be fused in quinoidal form. A systematic comparison of the physical properties of Sil-Si6' confirmed the unique trend in their LUMO levels, which become higher with longer pi conjugation. To understand the origin of this unusual trend, theoretical calculations were also carried out using various model compounds, and the results indicated that the terminal indenylidene (cyclopentadienylidene) moieties in Sil-Si6 (Sila-Si6a) are primarily responsible for this phenomenon through their frontier orbital correlations with the HOMO of the central polyene unit, which becomes higher in energy with longer pi conjugation.