title: Recent advances in planar tetracoordinate carbon chemistry.
abstract: We summarize our contributions on the quest of new planar tetracoordinate carbon entities (new carbon molecules with exotic chemical structures and strange bonding schemes). We give special emphasis on the rationalization why in this type of molecules the planar configuration is favored over the tetrahedral one. We will concentrate on the latter and will show that molecules containing planar tetracoordinate carbons have a stabilizing system of delocalized pi electrons, which shows similar properties as pi systems in aromatic molecules.
authors.affiliation: Facultad de Química, Universidad de Guanajuato, Col. Noria Alta s/n, CP 36050, Guanajuato, Gto., México. gmerino@quijote.ugto.mx
authors.forename: Gabriel
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Merino
authors.forename: Miguel A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Méndez-Rojas
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Vela
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Heine