The electronic structures of transition metal complexes of NO are controlled by the stereochemistry about the metal atom (stereochemical control of Evidence indicates that complexes of (NO) + and N2 are electronically similar. Hence, the principles of stereochemical control of valence may be applied to metal complexes of N2. In a linearly coordinated Mn-(NN) complex, valence electrons can be transferred from the metal to the N2 ligand producing a bent, protonated, and/or metallated Mn+2-(N=N2-) complex. This reduction of N2 can be effected by the addition of an appropriate ligand to M or by a change in the coordination geometry about M. Stereochemical control of valence leads to the rejection of one of the previously proposed mechanisms for reduction by nitrogenase.The biological reduction of N2 to ammonia by nitrogenase enzymes under mild conditions remains an intriguing, but as yet unsolved, problem. One proposed mechanism (1) involves coordination of N2 to a metal followed by stepwise twoelectron reductions of the coordinated substrate by way of N2 2e-2e-2e-N2H2 N2H4 2NHi. The first step in this series of reactions is thermodynamically unfavorable by about 50 Cal and would presumably be the most difficult step of the overall reduction. In order to avoid the unfavorable thermodynamics of this step, other workers (2) have proposed a four-electron reduction of N2 to coordinated N2H22-. We report here definitive structural results for two metal nitrosyl complexes that suggest a feasible pathway for effecting the difficult first step in the reduction of N2.NO forms several metal complexes. X-ray structure determinations (3) and N-is photoelectron spectra (4) show that in some complexes this ligand is best described as (NO) +, whereas in others an (NO) -description is more appropriate (4-6). Since (Table I). We have determined the structures of these two complexes by single crystal x-ray diffraction with data collected by counter methods (7, 8) ( Table I