Methylated ferrocenes are useful building blocks fornovel materials in molecularelectronics with advantageous properties in comparison to normalferrocene derivatives. Thepresence of nine, eight, or five methyl substituents leads to (i) adecrease in oxidationpotential, (ii) amplified donor capacity with correspondingly increasedstability of theferrocenium salts, and, most significantly, (iii) increased solubility.A modular syntheticapproach based on standard Wittig chemistry affords
-conjugatedsoluble nona-, octa-, andpentamethylated biferrocenes, bridged by up to fivevinylene-phenylene subunits. Thesebiferrocenes with spacers are "molecular wires" with ametal-to-metal distance of up to 40Å and an effective conjugation pathway of up to 50 Å.