Molecular structure of chlorotrimethylsilane and methyltrichlorosilane as investigated by gas-phase electron diffraction

Abstract The structural parameters of the title compounds have been determined by gas-phase electron diffraction at room temperature. For chlorotrimethylsilane the parameters have been refined by jointly using the moments of inertia from microwave literature. Distances in r g and angles in θ α with limits of error in parentheses are; for chlorotrimethylsilane SiCl 2.076(4) A, SiC 1.864(4) A and CSiCl 107.5(3)°. For methyltrichlorosilane the determined parameters are: SiCl 2.030(2) A, SiC 1.83(1) A and CSiCl 111.9(3)°. It has been shown that in a series of (CH 3 ) 4− n SiCl n , both SiCl and SiC distances show a monotonical decrease as n increases. This is a trend commonly observed in the series of corresponding compounds of other group 14 atoms.