Metal bis(acetylide) complex molecular wires: concepts and design strategies

The past decade has seen a remarkable surge in studies of thin-film and single-molecule electronics, due in no small part to the development and advancement of experimental methods for the construction and measurement of metal|molecule|metal junctions. Within the plethora of molecular structures that have been investigated, metal complexes of general form trans-M(C?CR)(2)(L-n) have attracted attention from the inorganic and organometallic chemistry community in the search for efficient molecular wires due to the potential -d- orbital mixing along the molecular backbone. In this article progress towards this goal will be summarised, and design strategies for future molecular components discussed.