Inorganic Cauliflower: Functional Main Group Element Dendrimers Constructed from Phosphorus- and Silicon-Based Building Blocks

摘要

Increased interest in synthetic mesoscopic systems and nano-structures has triggered the rapid development of the chemistry of dendrimers and cascade molecules. Dendrimers are oligo-or polymeric molecules with a treelike, branched backbone, which areconstructed in discrete generations by repetitive synthetic cycles. They exhibit interesting properties such as monodispersity, frequently spherical molecular shape, a high degree of internal order, and an accumulation of peripheral functional groups. Although at first mainly dendrimers with organic skeletons were studied, later, dendritic complexes and organometallic compounds and, more recently, main group cascade molecules from silicon- and phosphorus-based building blocks have come to the fore. Theincorporation of these elements was stimulated by the availability of a large number of highly reactive monomers suitable for both the assembly of the molecular frame and the attachment of peripheral functional groups. A further advantage of phosphorus-containing dendrimers is that ~(31)P NMR spectroscopy can be applied to directly monitor the construction process.