Département de chimie moléculaire

This crit. review narrates the story of 40 years of attempts to observe and isolate oxyallyl derivs. These efforts have paved the way to recent achievements, among which are the establishment of the transition-state nature of the parent compd. and the first observation of an alkyl-substituted oxyallyl. In recent years, this field of research has even reached the crit. point, from which oxyallyl derivs. shouldn't be disregarded as chem. oddities anymore, but as attractive synthetic targets with potential applications in advanced materials science. [on SciFinder(R)]