Cluster Preface: Nonplanar Polyaromatic Compounds

Dietmar Kuck has been a professor of chemistry since 2002 at Bielefeld University. He was one of the very first chemists when the Department of Chemistry was to be built up at this young university in 1973. Since his diploma thesis work at the University of Hamburg (1972) and his work for his doctoral thesis in Bielefeld (1976), his fascination for the fundamental chemistry that governs the properties and reactivity of organic ions in the dilute gas phase of a mass spectrometer has never ceased. In 1988, he was awarded the Mattauch–Herzog Prize for Mass Spectrometry of the German Mass Spectrometry Society (DGMS). He has published numerous original research papers and reviews on that topic, which contributes to our understanding of mass spectra and intrinsic properties of gaseous species. Since 1984, he has pioneered a new and completely independent research field, namely, the chemistry of the “centropolyindanes”: a family of novel polycyclic aromatic compounds with three-dimensional molecular structures, including benzoannelated [3.3.3]propellanes (triptindanes), tribenzotriquinacenes, benzoannelated fenestranes (e.g., the fenestrindanes), and centrohexa­indanes. Achievements in this field earned him his habilitation at the University of Paderborn and, thereafter, his professorship at the Bielefeld University. As a retiree since 2014, he continues to work on the further development of centropolyindane chemistry, in great part in fruitful and enjoyable collaboration with several groups worldwide.