“…The bonding arrangements in most examples reported to this date are L-E-L or L-E-E-L, in which E is the main group element of interest, and L is a neutral ligand. The field started in the 2005-2006 with the "rediscovery" of the carbodiphosphorane (1), [1] suggesting a "dative model" 1 b to be more accurate than the traditional depiction as 1 a, and Robinsons report of an N-heterocyclic carbene (NHC) stabilised disilene (3 Si), [2] described by Bertrand as a soluble "allotrope" of Si. [3] Since these two reports, a number of leading main-group chemists have been working in the area, including the groups of Bertrand, Braunschweig, Driess, Roesky, Robinson, Schmidbaur and Jones (synthetic), and Frenking, Schaefer and Schleyer (theory).…”