Dispersion-Energy-Driven Wagner–Meerwein Rearrangements in Oligosilanes

The installation of structural complex oligosilanes from linear starting materials by Lewis acid induced skeletal rearrangement reactions was studied under stable ion conditions. The produced cations were fully characterized by multinuclear NMR spectroscopy at low temperature, and the reaction course was studied by substitution experiments. The results of density functional theory calculations indicate the decisive role of attractive dispersion forces between neighboring trimethylsilyl groups for product formation in these rearrangement reactions. These attractive dispersion interactions control the course of Wagner-Meerwein rearrangements in oligosilanes, in contrast to the classical rearrangement in hydrocarbon systems, which are dominated by electronic substituent effects such as resonance and hyperconjugation.