Frontispiece: Noncovalent Interactions at Lanthanide Complexes

Abstract

Lanthanide complexes have attracted a widespread attention due to their structural diversity, as well as multifunctional and tuneable properties. The development of lanthanide based functional materials has often relied on the design of the secondary coordination sphere of the corresponding lanthanide complexes. For instance, usually simple lanthanide salts do not effectively catalyze organic reactions or provide low yield of the expected product, whereas the presence of a suitable organic ligand with a noncovalent bond donor or acceptor centre (secondary coordination sphere) modifies the symmetry around the metal centre in lanthanide complexes which then successfully can act as catalysts. For more information, see the Minireview by K. T. Mahmudov et al. on page 14370.