The synthesis and properties of metal-metal (MM) quadruply bonded compounds of molybdenum and tungsten in liquid crystalline phases are described. Covalently linked MM quadruply bonded complexes, dimers of dimers, are shown to give rise to mixed valence complexes upon oxidation and the degree of electron delocalization is shown to be correlated with the M 2␦ bridge interactions. Class III behavior or complete delocalization is observed to M 2 to M2 distances of up to 14 Å. When the M2 unit is attached to oligothiophenes via a carboxylate tether, the photophysical properties of the thienyl units are greatly modified due to M 2␦-thienyl conjugation and spin-orbit coupling. This leads to long-lived emissive states and electroluminescence in solid-state devices. 4 (1). If the MM axis is defined as the z axis, then the metal-ligand bonds can be considered to use metal s, p x , p y and d x2-y2 orbitals thus leaving the metal d z2 to form a bond, the degenerate d xz and d yz interact to form the bonds and lastly the d xy to form the ␦ bond which has two nodes intersecting along the MM axis. The dinuclear center is redox active and upon oxidation electrons are removed from the ␦ orbital to give MM configurations of 2 4 ␦ and 2 4 leading, respectively, to MM bond orders of 3.5 and 3. These compounds have challenged our understanding of chemical bonding and their attendant spectral features such as the assignment of (MM) or the ␦ to ␦* transition have often been the subject of intense debate (2-5). This article focuses on chemistry derived from M 2 (O 2 CR) 4 compounds, where M ϭ Mo and W, and covers work completed in my laboratory principally over the past decade.The M 2 (O 2 CR) 4 compounds can be viewed as coordinatively unsaturated in as much as the metal ions only attain a share of 16 valence electrons as a result of forming four metal-ligand bonds and the MM quadruple bond. By the use of the metal p z orbital (or an s, p z