Organometallic Migrations over Clusters and Surfaces

Within the general theme of molecular dynamics of organometallic complexes, we have focussed our recent efforts on understanding how organic moieties migrate over cluster faces and, conversely, how organometallic fragments interact with polycyclic organic ligands. In the first case, the cluster face can be regarded as a tailor-made microsurface and the molecular dynamics are controlled primarily by the frontier orbital interactions between the organic unit and one or more metal centers. In the second case, an MLn fragment is initially π-complexed to one ring of the polycyclic system but is able to undergo haptotropic shifts so as to bind to one or more different rings.