Combining the chemistries of silylene and sulfur-nitrogen compounds-SiS2N2 and related systems

A new class of inorganic systems is introduced in which a silylene fragment is combined with a sulfur-nitrogen fragment. The properties of the resulting "sulfur-nitrogen silylenes" have been studied using quantum chemical calculations, focussing on isodesmic reaction energies, dimerization, electro-and nucleophilicity, and the singlet-triplet energy gap-a number of as yet unsuccessful attempts to prepare the compounds is also reported. These new systems are found to be stable silylenes in which the sulfur-nitrogen fragment stabilizes both the singlet and the triplet states through extensive electron delocalization.