Copper(I) species exhibit various coordination modes as a function of surrounding ligands. Complexes bearing N-heterocyclic carbenes as ligands are usually monomeric species with the copper adopting a linear geometry. Contrarily to the parent phosphine complexes, in which the presence of species of higher nuclearity is well established, fewer examples of such copper(I)–NHC species are reported and, interestingly, their number is growing. Moreover, these are no longer a mere curiosity from a coordination perspective since they have been shown successful in catalysis. The aim of this review is to present a summary of the synthesis and structural properties of dinuclear copper(I)–NHC complexes. It is our hope that by centralizing all information available on such species, future efforts aimed at exploiting their full potential can be facilitated.

铜（I）物种表现出各种配位模式，作为周围配体的函数。带有N-杂环卡宾作为配体的配合物通常是单体物种，而铜采用线性几何形状。与母体膦络合物相反，在母体膦络合物中已确定存在更高核数的物种，据报道此类铜（I）-NHC物种的实例较少，而且有趣的是，它们的数量正在增长。此外，从配位的角度来看，这些已不再仅仅是好奇，因为它们已被证明在催化中是成功的。这篇综述的目的是提供双核铜（I）-NHC配合物的合成和结构特性的概述。我们希望，通过集中有关此类物种的所有可用信息，可以促进旨在发挥其全部潜力的未来努力。