Significant progress
has been made in the past 10–15 years
on the design, synthesis, and properties of multimetallic coordination
complexes with heterometallic metal–metal bonds that are paramagnetic.
Several general classes have been explored including heterobimetallic
compounds, heterotrimetallic compounds of either linear or triangular
geometry, discrete molecular compounds containing a linear array of
more than three metal atoms, and coordination polymers with a heterometallic
metal–metal bonded backbone. We focus in this Review on the
synthetic methods employed to access these compounds, their structural
features, magnetic properties, and electronic structure. Regarding
the metal–metal bond distances, we make use of the formal shortness
ratio (FSR) for comparison of bond distances between a broad range
of metal atoms of different sizes. The magnetic properties of these
compounds can be described using an extension of the Goodenough–Kanamori
rules to cases where two magnetic ions interact via a third metal
atom. In describing the electronic structure, we focus on the ability
(or not) of electrons to be delocalized across heterometallic bonds,
allowing for rationalizations and predictions of single-molecule conductance
measurements in paramagnetic heterometallic molecular wires.