New Experimental Insight into the Nature of Metal-Metal Bonds in Digallium Compounds: J Coupling between Quadrupolar Nuclei.

Multiple bonding between atoms is of ongoing fundamental and applied interest. Here, we report a multinuclear ((1) H, (13) C, and (71) Ga) solid-state magnetic resonance spectroscopic study of digallium compounds which have been proposed, albeit somewhat controversially, to contain single, double, and triple Ga-Ga bonds. Of particular relevance to the nature of these bonds, we have carried out two-dimensional (71) Ga J/D-resolved NMR experiments which provide a direct measurement of J((71) Ga,(71) Ga) spin-spin coupling constants across the gallium-gallium bonds. When placed in the context of clear-cut experimental data for analogous singly, doubly, and triply bonded carbon spin pairs or boron spin pairs, the (71) Ga NMR data clearly support the notion of a different bonding paradigm in the gallium systems. Our findings are consistent with an increasing role across the purported gallane-gallene-gallyne series for classical and/or slipped π-type bonding orbitals.