Database analysis of Au … Au interactions

The geometry of gold-gold interactions in a group of 693 gold-containing crystal structures has been examined using data from the Cambridge Structural Database. These contacts occur in the range 2.50-4.00 Å. Intermolecular Au … Au contacts are formed by compounds of the type AuXY (X, Y = any element) with the X-Au-Au-Y conformation being either staggered or eclipsed. Clusters of the type AuZ (where Z is any element including Au) are characterised by a large number of short gold-gold contacts reflecting an approach towards Au in the interior of the cluster