Organosilicon Radicals with Si-H and Si-Me Bonds from Commodity Precursors.

The cyclic alkyl(amino) carbene (cAAC) stabilized biradicals of composition (cAAC)2SiH2 (1), (cAAC)SiMe[sub 2]-SiMe[sub 2](cAAC) (2), and (cAAC)SiMeCl- SiMeCl(cAAC) (3) have been isolated as molecular species. All the compounds are stable at room temperature for more than 6 months under inert conditions in the solid state. All radical species were fully characterized by single- crystal X-ray structure analysis and EPR spectroscopy. Furthermore, the structure and bonding of compounds 1-3 have been investigated by theoretical methods. Compound 1 contains the SiH[sub 2] moiety and this is the first instance, where we have isolated 1 without an acceptor molecule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]