On Friday, February 20, 1980, I had the pleasure to be present at the inaugural lecture of my colleague Jan Reedijk, who had just been named at the Chair of Inorganic Chemistry of Leiden University. According to tradition, the ceremony took place in the impressive Hall of the old University Academy Building. In the course of his lecture, Jan mentioned a number of recent developments in chemistry which had struck him as particularly important or interesting. Among those was the synthesis of large metal cluster compounds, and, to my luck, he showed a slide ofthe molecular structure of [PtI9(C)b]4-. (To my luck, since at traditional Leiden University it is quite unusual to show slides at such ceremonies.) This constituted my first acquaintance with this exciting new class of materials. I became immediately fascinated by this molecule, partly because of the esthetic beauty of its fivefold symmetry, partly because as a physicist it struck me that it could be visualized as an "embryonically small" metal particle, embedded in a shell of CO ligands.

Inhalt

1. Introduction to Metal Cluster Compounds: From Molecule to Metal!.- 1.1. The impact of cluster-science.- 1.2. Structural characteristics of metal clusters.- 1.3. Electronic energy-level structures.- 1.4. Brief introduction to the physical properties of metal cluster compounds.- 1.5. Conductivity studies.- 1.6. Application of the Anderson-Hubbard approach.- References.- 2. High-Nuclearity Carbonyl Metal Clusters.- 2.1. Introduction.- 2.2. Synthesis and reactivity.- 2.3. Structural aspects.- 2.4. Electron counting for clusters.- References.- 3. Ligand-Stabilized Giant Metal Clusters and Colloids.- 3.1. Strategy for making giant metal clusters.- 3.2. Synthetic and structural examples.- 3.3. Chemical properties.- 3.4. Catalysis.- 3.5. Outlook.- References.- 4. Theory of Electronic Properties of Metal Clusters and Particles.- 4.1. Why are metal particles interesting?.- 4.2. Model Hamiltonians.- 4.3. Traditional quantum chemical methods.- 4.4. Density functional approaches.- 4.5. Summary.- References.- 5. X-Ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy Applied to Pure and Supported Molecular Clusters.- 5.1. Introduction.- 5.2. Generalities of photoemission spectroscopy applied to pure and supported molecular metal clusters.- 5.3. XPS of molecular clusters.- 5.4. XPS of supported molecular clusters.- 5.5. Outlook for the future.- References.- 6. Application of Mössbauer Effect Spectroscopy to Cluster Research.- 6.1. Introduction.- 6.2. Mössbauer Effect Spectroscopy (MES).- 6.3. Our Mössbauer results.- 6.4. 197Au MES on platinum clusters.- 6.5. Conclusions.- References.- 7. Specific Heat Studies on Metal Cluster Compounds.- 7.1. Introduction.- 7.2. The lattice specific heat.- 7.3. The electronic specific heat.- 7.4. Data and discussion.- 7.5. Summary.- References.- 8. NMR in SubmicronParticles.- 8.1. Introduction.- 8.2. Surface and quantum size effects.- 8.3. ESR and NMR Theory.- 8.4. Naked clusters Experiment and discussion.- 8.5. Aggregates of metal cluster compounds Experiment and discussion.- 8.6. Summary.- References.- 9. Magnetic Properties and UV-Visible Spectroscopic Studies of Metal Cluster Compounds.- 9.1. Introduction.- 9.2. Magnetic properties.- 9.3. Electronic (UV-visible-NMR) spectra.- 9.4. Conclusion.- Acknowledgements.- References.- 10. Magnetic Properties of Metal Cluster Compounds.- 10.1. Introduction.- 10.2. Magnetic properties of atoms, metals and clusters.- 10.3. Experiments on metal cluster compounds.- References.- Index of Chemical Compounds.- Index of Subjects.