Magnetic hysteresis in 1D organometallic lanthanide chain compounds containing 4,4′-bipyridine

The assembly of multinuclear complexes bearing highly anisotropic building blocks remains an attractive approach to developing advanced functional materials. However, incorporating lanthanide-based metallocenium moieties, [Cp^R₂Ln]⁺, into higher-order systems remains a significant synthetic challenge and their targeted isolation is exceedingly rare. Presented herein are organometallic lanthanide chain compounds bearing bridging 4,4′-bipyridine ligands, (where Ln = Gd (1), Tb (2), Dy (3); Cp* = pentamethylcyclopentadienyl; bpy = 4,4′-bipyridine). This constitutes the first report of a crystallographically characterised 1D organometallic network of lanthanide metallocenium units connected to one another through organic bridges. Each metallocenium moiety is ligated by two bipyridyl ligands, giving rise to zigzag-shaped chains, where tetraphenylborate anions reside in between the nitrogen ligands. The formation of the compounds from and 4,4′-bipyridine is very fast, leading to an immediate precipitation in the polar solvent THF. Thus, a judicious synthetic route was developed to ensure crystallisation and pure isolation which involved the use of an H-tube. Dc magnetic susceptibility measurements for 1–3 allude to the presence of uncoupled lanthanide ions, which is consistent with the experimental cw-EPR spectrum as well as the calculated magnetic exchange coupling constant, J, for the gadolinium congener, 1, obtained through broken-symmetry DFT. The dysprosium analogue, 3, is a single-molecule magnet (SMM) which was confirmed through both out-of-phase ac magnetic susceptibility signals under a zero applied dc field, indicative of slow magnetic relaxation, and isothermal, variable-field dc measurements, revealing open magnetic hysteresis loops up to 8 K. The lack of intra- and interchain magnetic exchange suggests that the origin of single-molecule magnetism in 3 arises from single-ion anisotropy and crystal field, which is further supported via ab initio calculations.