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Polycyclic complexes containing a bridgehead transition metal are interesting species because the transition metal is shared by all the rings simultaneously. In this study, we present a novel osmium-bridgehead system with three fused five-membered rings. This novel framework can be viewed as a 10-atom carbon chain coordinating to the osmium center. In sharp contrast to the nonplanar organic analogue, this unique metallacycle exhibits good planarity, which was unambiguously verified by means of X-ray diffraction. Interestingly, preliminary DFT calculations show that the aromaticity in the three 5MRs of these osmatricycles can be easily tuned by the ligand substitution. Finally, the broad UV/Vis absorption spectra of these novel polycyclic complexes were also reported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In general, aromaticity can be clarified as π- and σ-aromaticity according to the type of electrons with major contributions. The traditional π-aromaticity generally describes the π-conjugation in fully unsaturated rings whereas σ-aromaticity may stabilize fully saturated rings with delocalization caused by σ-electron conjugation. Reported herein is an example of σ-aromaticity in an unsaturated three-membered ring (3 MR), which is supported by experimental observations and theoretical calculations. Specifically, when the 3 MR in cyclopropaosmapentalene is cleaved by ethane through two isodesmic reactions, both of them are highly endothermic (+29.7 and +35.0 kcal mol−1). These positive values are in sharp contrast to the expected exothermicity, thus indicating aromaticity in the 3 MR. Further nucleus-independent chemical shift and anisotropy of the current-induced density calculations reveal the nature of σ-aromaticity in the unsaturated 3 MR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]