Stable germanium analogs of carbenes, imines, ketones, thiones, selones and tellones

The chemistry of low coordinate germanium compounds has made important advances in recent years and a rather large number of these species have been isolated in a monomeric state owing to both electronic and/or steric effects. This review reports with their synthetic routes the stable germylenes drop Ge and the stable germanimines, germanone, germanethiones, -selones and -tellones drop Ge=Y (Y=N-, O, S, Se, Te) prepared up to now, focusing particularly on compounds whose structures have been determined. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.