Metallophilic interaction

Intermolecular metallophilic interactions can lead to formation of supramolecular assemblies whose properties vary with the choice of element and oxidation states of the metal atoms and the attachment of various ligands to them.

[2] Observations and theory find that, on average, 28% of the binding energy in gold–gold interactions can be attributed to relativistic expansion of the gold d orbitals.

[4] Recently, the relativistic effect was found to enhance the intermolecular M-M Pauli repulsion of the closed-shell organometallic complexes.

This model is validated by both DFT (density functional theory) and high-level CCSD(T) (coupled-cluster singles and doubles with perturbative triples) computations.

[5] One way of probing the strength of particular intermolecular metallophilic interactions is to use a competing solvent and examine how it interferes with supromolecular properties.