Gold complexes organic ligands

The cyclic carbene complex shown in equation 3.4 was studied by X-ray diffraction [66], it shows a linear complex (angle C—Au—C 178.6(4)°) and the gold aryl bond distance is 1.993(10) A which is in accordance with such bonds in other known pentafluorophenyl complexes. The gold carbene carbon distance is 1.961(9) A, the dihedral angle between the planes formed by the two organic ligands is 5.35° and the shortest intermolecular Au—Au distance is 3.95 A. 

Complexes of the type [AuRL] may contain a great variety of organic ligands such as alkyl, aryl, vinyl, or alkynyl, whereas the neutral donor ligand L is most commonly a tertiary phosphine. Also many polynuclear complexes are known which have the C-Au-L moiety with bridging polyfunctional ligands. Alkyl- or aryl-gold(I) complexes are usually synthesized... 

As described in the introduction, the 197Au nucleus is 100% abundant and has a quadrupole moment (Table 1). Yet, in practice, the measurement of 197Au NMR spectra is not feasible. Thus, all NMR studies of gold complexes are based on the detection of other NMR-active nuclei present in the organic ligands. The literature is too extensive for a complete review here, but representative applications of 1II, l3C and 31P NMR are described in the following sections. 

---