Combining the chemistries of silylene and sulfur-nitrogen compounds—SiS2N2 and related systems

Abstract

A new class of inorganic systems is introduced in which a silylene fragment is combined with a sulfur-nitrogen fragment. The properties of the resulting “sulfur-nitrogen silylenes” have been studied using quantum chemical calculations, focussing on isodesmic reaction energies, dimerization, electro- and nucleophilicity, and the singlet–triplet energy gap–a number of as yet unsuccessful attempts to prepare the compounds is also reported. These new systems are found to be stable silylenes in which the sulfur-nitrogen fragment stabilizes both the singlet and the triplet states through extensive electron delocalization.