Influencing the properties of dysprosium single-molecule magnets with phosphorus donor ligands.

ABSTRACT: Single-molecule magnets are a type of coordination compound that can retain magnetic information at low temperatures. Single-molecule magnets based on lanthanides have accounted for many important advances, including systems with very large energy barriers to reversal of the magnetization, and a di-terbium complex that displays magnetic hysteresis up to 14?K and shows strong coercivity. Ligand design is crucial for the development of new single-molecule magnets: organometallic chemistry presents possibilities for using unconventional ligands, particularly those with soft donor groups. Here we report dysprosium single-molecule magnets with neutral and anionic phosphorus donor ligands, and show that their properties change dramatically when varying the ligand from phosphine to phosphide to phosphinidene. A phosphide-ligated, trimetallic dysprosium single-molecule magnet relaxes via the second-excited Kramers' doublet, and, when doped into a diamagnetic matrix at the single-ion level, produces a large energy barrier of 256?cm(-1) and magnetic hysteresis up to 4.4?K.

SUBMITTER: Pugh T 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4507012 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature