Argentophilic Interactions

The decade 1990-2000 saw a growing interest in aurophilic interactions in gold chemistry. These interactions were found to influence significantly a variety of structural and other physical characteristics of gold(I) compounds. The attention paid to this unusual and counterintuitive type of intra- and intermolecular bonding between seemingly closed-shell metal centers has rapidly been extended to also include silver chemistry. Hundreds of experimental and computational studies have since been dedicated to the argentophilicity phenomenon. The results of this development are reviewed herein focusing on molecular systems where two or more silver(I) centers are in close contact leading to specific structural characteristics and a variety of novel physical properties. These include strongly modified ligand-to-metal charge-transfer processes observed in absorption and emission spectroscopy, but also colossal positive and negative thermal expansion on the one hand and unprecedented negative linear compressibility of crystal parameters on the other.