ABSTRACT
Halogen atoms are typically located at the periphery of molecules. Thus, they are ideally positioned to be involved in intermolecular interactions, and therefore, they can play a fundamental role in the aggregation of halogenated molecules in solids. Halogen bonding refers to directional attractive interactions of halogen atoms with nucleophiles and is a strong enough interaction to direct the aggregation of molecules in the solid, liquid, and gas phases.Halogen bonding has become the subject of many investigations, with a major emphasis on organic solid state chemistry, although the use of halogen bonds in metal‐containing materials is recently developing quite rapidly, mainly motivated by the variety of properties that metal atoms provide.This chapter presents a brief description of the range of applications where halogen bonding has been employed in organic systems and focuses on the most pertinent studies of halogen bonding in the synthesis of hybrid organic‐inorganic systems.
