ABSTRACT
Boranes and carboranes are comprised of σ-aromatic cage-like structures with boron and carbon vertices ranging from small tetrahedral to supra-icosahedral clusters. Despite more than four decades of work with this class of inorganic compound, there have been few reports of their photophysical properties, with a distinct paucity of information regarding luminescence. Carboranes have nevertheless been incorporated into photophysically active metal complexes, usually as ancillary components.1−3 But what of boranes, carboranes, and metallacarboranes (where a transition metal atom can either be an integral vertex in the polyhedral skeletal framework or an exterior component thereof) as chromophores themselves and their resultant optoelectronic behavior? In this arena, there are very few contributors.
