Bagrat A. Shainyan, Elena N. Suslova, Tran Dinh Phien, Sergey A. Shlykov, Matthias Heydenreich, Erich Kleinpeter

• 1-Methylthio-1-phenyl-1-silacyclohexane 1, the first silacyclohexane with the sulfur atom at silicon, was synthesized and its molecular structure and conformational preferences studied by gas-phase electron diffraction (GED) and low temperature C-13 and Si-29 NMR spectroscopy (LT NMR). Quantum-chemical calculations were carried out both for the isolated species and solvate complexes in gas and in polar medium. The predominance of the 1-MeSaxPheq conformer in gas phase (1-Ph-eq :1-Ph-ax = 55:45, Delta G degrees = 0.13 kcal/mol) determined from GED is consistent with that measured in the freon solution by LT NMR (1-Ph-eq:1-Ph-ax = 65:35, Delta G degrees = 0.12 kcal/mol), the experimentally measured ratios being close to that estimated by quantum chemical calculations at both the DFT and MP2 levels of theory. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.