The Modest Undressing of a Silicon Center

Although they are in the same group of the periodic table, the elements carbon and silicon have very different properties. Silicon can form high-coordinate species but seldom forms low-coordinate compounds the way carbon does. In his Perspective, Bertrand discusses results reported in the same issue by Jutzi et al. in which a derivative of the low-coordinate HSispecies has been isolated, a feat not previously thought possible. With this avenue now open, it should be possible to synthesize a wide range of other novel and interesting low-coordinate silicon complexes.