Slow magnetic relaxation in a Dy3 triangle and a bistriangular Dy6 cluster

Dalton Trans. 2022 Jun 21;51(24):9404-9411. doi: 10.1039/d1dt03414f.

Abstract

Two lanthanide single-molecule magnets (SMMs) [Dy33-OH)(HL-1)3(H2O)3](NO3)2·3H3O (1, H3L-1 = (E)-3-(((8-hydroxyquinolin-2-yl)methylene)amino)propane-1,2-diol) and [Dy63-OH)4(H2L-2)4(HL-2)2(L-2)2] (2, H3L-2 = (E)-2-hydroxy-N'-(2-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzylidene)benzohydrazide) were synthesized and characterized structurally and magnetically. Complex 1 contains a triangular Dy3 core in which the three Dy3+ ions share a μ3-OH- anion and the deprotonated ligands of (HL-1)2- serve both capping and bridging functions, while 2 displays a centrosymmetric hexanuclear DyIII structure with two similar Dy3 triangular cores ligated by two fully deprotonated (L-2)3- ligands, each of which shares two μ3-OH- anions. All the DyIII ions are eight-coordinated with quasi D2d or C2v symmetry. Magnetic studies reveal that 1 exhibited two-step magnetic relaxation under an applied dc field of 800 Oe, with effective energy barriers of 40.1 and 31.0 K for the slow relaxation (SR) and fast relaxation regimes (FR), respectively. Meanwhile, 2 only showed a tail of slow magnetic relaxation at above 2 K. Ab initio calculations have been carried out to show the nature of their different magnetic properties.