From the discovery of sodiumoxyorganoalkoxysilanes to the organosilicon dendrimers and back

Upon being discovered 20 years ago, sodiumoxyorganoalkoxysilanes became the key to the world of organoelement dendrimers. Even considering the great variety of objects that had appeared in this area during the last 20 years, the organosilicon dendrimers are still one of the most actual objects in this class. Above all, this is fair concerning the carbosilane systems. The high reactivity of the functional groups, the well controlled chemistry of their transformations, and the inertness of the molecular skeleton are the reason for making these systems highly actual in two main regards: as model objects for the deep research of the dendrimers' properties and as polyfunctional matrixes for numerous derivatives. In this review, we were mainly focusing on the importance of the former part. In the conclusion, we showed the motivation for further development of this area both in regard of synthesis of new carbosilane systems and further development of siloxane dendrimers. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 46: 4935–4948, 2008