organometallic chemistry Organometallic chemistry is the study of organometallic compounds, chemical compounds containing at least one chemical bond between a carbon atom of an organic molecule and a metal, including alkali, alkaline earth, and transition metals, and so ...

, extended metal atom chains (EMACs) are molecules that consist of a linear chain of directly bonded metal atoms, surrounded by organic

ligand In coordination chemistry, a ligand is an ion or molecule (functional group) that binds to a central metal atom to form a coordination complex. The bonding with the metal generally involves formal donation of one or more of the ligand's electr ...

s. These compounds represent the smallest molecular wires. Such species are researched for the bottom-up approach to

nanoelectronics Nanoelectronics refers to the use of nanotechnology in electronic components. The term covers a diverse set of devices and materials, with the common characteristic that they are so small that inter-atomic interactions and quantum mechanical pr ...

, although no applications are near term.

Structure

An EMAC molecule contains a linear string of

transition metal In chemistry, a transition metal (or transition element) is a chemical element in the d-block of the periodic table (groups 3 to 12), though the elements of group 12 (and less often group 3) are sometimes excluded. They are the elements that can ...

s (typically Cr, Co, Ni, or Cu) that are bonded to each other and surrounded helically by organic

s. The metal chains are usually end-capped by anions, usually

halide In chemistry, a halide (rarely halogenide) is a binary chemical compound, of which one part is a halogen atom and the other part is an element or radical that is less electronegative (or more electropositive) than the halogen, to make a fluor ...

s. The organic ligands often pyridylamide,

pyridone Pyridone may refer to several organic compounds with the formula : *2-Pyridone *3-Pyridone *4-Pyridone Pyridones, {{Short pages monitor