We are particularly fascinated with oxidizing functional groups. Nitrogen-oxide based groups (nitro, nitroso, nitrato and nitrito) and dinitrogen-based groups (azo, diazo, diazonium) have a highly developed chemistry that is relevant to organic synthesis, pharmaceutical chemistry, energetic materials and photophysically-active materials. Compounds that bear these functional groups very often display highly unusual properties.
Very little is known on the existence of heavy main-group element compounds that bear oxidizing functional groups. We believe that such knowledge is important for chemistry and that these compounds are likely to be of high scientific interest and represent a unique opportunity to improve the pool of available energetic and photophysical building blocks.
