Unlike thermally initiated phosphaalkyne oligomerization reactions, transition metals and main group metals are capable of oligomerizing phosphaalkynes in a controlled manner, and have led to the isolation of phosphaalkyne dimers, trimers, tetramers, pentamers, and even hexamers. A nickel complex is capable of catalytically homocoupling tBu-C≡P to yield a diphosphatetrahedrane.
