Silicenium ions solid-state studies

Running in parallel with the numerous experimental attempts to prepare silicenium ions in recent years, there has been a considerable number of computational studies carried out on them. The computational work is described in detail in the chapter by Schleyer and Maerker and this chapter will describe experimental work, concentrating mainly on solution and solid state experimental work with only occasional reference to calculations when necessary. 

While silicenium ions are still a rather elusive species in the solid state or in solution18, their generation in the gas phase represents no major difficulties and their properties have been studied in great detail. In fact, the wealth of data that has been accumulated does not allow for a full treatment of all the results in this short section. Rather, we will confine ourselves to the discussion of a number of the more prominent examples here. Further details will also be discussed in Sections III and IV. 

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