Cyclic nitrogen-silicon ring

The formation of the (SiN)2 ring can be explained by a nucleophilic 1,3-rearrangement of a methanide ion at silicon. The cyclic ylide is formed because the two nitrogen atoms are identically substituted and a silyl group migration would be without energy profit in such a molecule. 

Today X-ray structures of pretty stable cyclic silylenes are available in these compounds silicon is bound to two nitrogen neighbours as part of a five membered ring skeleton resulting in the first stable silylene with a pure coordination number two ... 

The structures of several related naphtho-fused ring systems have been determined by X-ray crystallography. Thus, the cyclic silazane 112 (R = Ph) is planar at the nitrogen atom and all the rings lie almost coplanar, while the related compound 112 (R = Bu but with an anisyl group attached to one of the silicon atoms) has the silicon atoms out of the plane of the tricyclic system, and the ylide 113 has the heterocyclic ring in an envelope conformation and the ylidic carbon is pyramidal and not planar <1996CB495> (see Section 9.18.4.3.2). 

Cyclic monomers that have been polymerized via ring-opening encompass a variety of structures, such as alkanes, alkenes, compounds containing heteroatoms in the ring oxygen [ethers, acetals, esters (lactones, lactides, and carbonates), and anhydrides], sulfur (polysulfur, sulfides and polysulfides), nitrogen [amines, amides (lactames), imides, N-carboxyanhydrides and 1,3-oxaza derivatives], phosphorus (phosphates, phosphonates, phosphites, phosphines and phosphazenes), or silicon (siloxanes, silaethers, carbosilanes and silanes). For the majority of these monomers, convenient polymerization conditions have been elaborated, that result in the controlled synthesis of the corresponding polymers [1-13]. 

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