Organometallic pentalene complexes

There has been a recent renaissance in the organometallic chemistry of pentalene, following the discovery of the first complexes incorporating pentalene eta (8)-ligated to a single metal center. This short review outlines recent work in the author's laboratory on the preparation of silylated pentalene ligands and the subsequent synthesis of novel, monometallic, and bimetallic pentalene sandwich and half-sandwich complexes of the f- and d-block elements.