| Citation | Dr. Mingos has made a unique contribution to inorganic chemistry by developing new bonding models and testing their consequences by an imaginative experimental programme. His unusual breadth of interests can be summarised by noting that he has shown great originality in developing new concepts in cluster and organometallic chemistry and simultaneously made significant contributions to synthetic, structural and spectroscopic aspects of the subject. His studies on metal cluster compounds have led to the first examples of icosahedral high nuclearity gold clusters, which he had earlier predicted using molecular orbital calculations, the first example of skeletal isomerism in the solid state, the first examples of gold-platinum and platinum-thallium cluster compounds, and the development of sulphur dioxide as an alternative stabilising ligand. His theoretical contributions in this area include general bonding models for gold and platinum clusters, definition of the closed shell requirements for condensed and high nuclearity clusters, and the isolobal analogy. His contributions in borane chemistry include the generally accepted analysis for the "slip" distortions and conformational preference in metallocarboranes. In nitrosyl chemistry he analysed for the first time the bonding in linear and bent nitrosyls and provided the first n.m.r. evidence for distinguishing these co-ordination modes in both solution and the solid state. He has proposed rules for the nucleophilic addition reactions and the fluxional behaviour of organometallic compounds. |