Oxime based manganese molecular magnets

Abstract

The synthesis and characterisation of a large family of hexametallic [MnIII 6] Single-Molecule Magnets with general formula [MnIII 6O2(R-sao)6(X)2(L)4-6] (where sao2- = dianion of salicylaldoxime; R = H, Me, Et, Ph; X = O2CR' (R' = H, Me, Ph etc), Hal , O2PHPh or O2P(Ph)2; L = solvent) are presented. Deliberate structural distortions of the [Mn3O] trinuclear moieties within the complexes are used to tune the observed magnetic properties. These findings highlight a qualitative magnetostructural correlation whereby the type (anti- or ferromagentic) of each Mn2 pairwise magnetic exchange is dominated by the magnitude of each individual Mn-N-O-Mn torsion angle. To shed further light on this intriguing family of nanomagnets, a large family of the analogous “half” molecules has been synthesised and fully characterised. These trimetallic [MnIII 3] complexes can be divided into three categories with general formulae (type 1) [MnIII 3O(R-sao)3(X)(sol)3-4] (where R = H, Me, tBu; X = O2CR (R = H, Me, Ph etc); sol = py and / or H2O), (type 2) [MnIII 3O(R-sao)3(X)(sol)3-5] (where R = Me, Et, Ph, tBu; X = O2CR (R = H, Me, Ph etc); sol = MeOH, EtOH and / or H2O), and (type 3) [MnIII 3O(R-sao)3(sol)3](XO4) (where R = H, Et, Ph, Naphth; sol = py, MeOH, -pic, Et-py, tBu-py; X = Cl, Re). In the crystals the ferromagnetic triangles are involved in extensive inter-molecular H-bonding which is clearly manifested in the magnetic behaviour, producing exchange-biased SMMs. These interactions can be removed by ligand replacement to give “simpler” SMMs. The [MnIII 6] and [MnIII 3] molecular nanomagnets are then exploited as building blocks to construct supramolecular architectures by means of host-guest interactions and coordination driven self-assembly. A number of discrete and infinite architectures based on the molecular triangle [Mn3] and various pyridyl-type ligands were obtained and structurally and magnetically characterised.