Organometallic polymorphism and phase transitionsDedicated to Professor Alberto Ripamonti on the occasion of his 70th birthday.

Abstract

The possibility of obtaining the same organometallic substance in different crystal forms, which may or may not interconvert via a phase transition, is reviewed. The occurrence of reversible order-to-order and order-to-disorder phase transitions, usually associated with reorientational processes in the solid state for mono- and poly-nuclear organometallic complexes, is addressed. Pseudo-polymorphism arising from co-crystallisation of solvent molecules and the preparation and interconversion of pseudo-polymorphs by non-solution methods are discussed.