State-of-Art and New Trends in Transition Metal Clusters

Abstract

This special issue of Journal of Cluster Science is devoted to the proceedings of the International Workshop on Transition Metal Clusters (IWTMC), held in the University of Rennes 1 (France) on July 3–5, 2008. The main objective of the workshop, organized by the laboratory Sciences Chimiques de Rennes, was to join together the international community implied in the synthesis, the characterization (chemical, crystallographic and physical) and the potentialities of applications of the inorganic compounds and/or organic–inorganic hybrids built from transition metal clusters, in the acceptance defined many years ago by F. A. Cotton: ‘‘A metal atom cluster is a finite group of metal atoms that are held together mainly, or at least to a significant extent, by bonds directly between the metal atoms, even though some non metal atoms may also be intimately associated with the cluster’’ [1]. Nevertheless the workshop was also opened to some nanomaterials approaches, in accordance with the recent orientation of J. Cluster Sci. IWTMC follows, in many aspects, the European Research Conference on ‘‘Clusters Metal in Chemistry’’ (European Science Foundation, Mont Sainte-Odile (France), May 2–7, 1996) and has been the opportunity for 90 attendants from 11 countries to highlight the state-of-art and new trends in transition metal cluster chemistry and physics in various fields, for instance: