Trinuclear anionic gold clusters bridged by dialkylsilylene and dialkylgermylene.

While the chemistry of gold clusters has been developed rapidly, the knowledge of trinuclear gold clusters with low-valent gold remains scarce. Herein, we report the synthesis, structural characterization, and density functional theory (DFT) calculations of trinuclear anionic gold clusters 3a and 3b ligated by dialkylsilylene (1a) and dialkylgermylene (1b), respectively.