Coordination compounds based on anisotropic lanthanide ions have recently attracted the interest of inorganic chemists, magnetochemists and physicists because of the ability of these species to act as single-molecule magnets with enhanced properties (e.g., large energy barriers for the magnetization reversal and high blocking temperatures). Magnetic anisotropy is a key factor for the determination of interesting single-molecule magnetism properties. The ligands surrounding the lanthanide ions are known to affect the magnitude and sign of the magnetic anisotropy and consequently the splitting of the mJ states. The application of a crystal field splits the degeneracy of the mJ microstates of the 2S+1LJ ground term of the lanthanide ion. For DyIII-based complexes with a non-integer value of J, this results in a Kramers doublet ground state, i.e. a degenerate pair of ±mJ microstates, which produces a bistable magnetic moment that can be used to store information at a molecular level. Therefore, one of the long term challenges is to control the local symmetry of the 4f-metal ions via either a rational design or by synthesizing serendipitously low or high nuclearity complexes with high-symmetry coordination environments. Furthermore, the ability of an organic ligand to bridge two or more metal ions results in the crystallization of high nuclearity compounds with nanoscale dimensions and exciting structures. In this presentation, we will discuss the synthesis, structures and magnetic properties of various families of lanthanide complexes exhibiting new structural motifs of both small and large nuclearities, and single-molecule magnetism behaviors.

Single-molecule magnets based on oligo- and polynuclear lanthanide complexes

253rd National Meeting (2017)

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