Abstract

The discovery of a series of lanthanide complexes behaving as Single Molecule Magnets (SMMs) has resulted in the rapid expansion of this field in the past few years. In this review, we focus on dysprosium-based SMMs assembled from versatile hydrazone ligands. The studies on a series of Dy₂ complexes and Dy₆ triangular prism indicate that the Dy₂ unit with hula hoop-like geometry represents an excellent building block for the assembly of polynuclear dysprosium complexes. Structural and magnetic investigations on such system suggest that the hydrazone ligands are suitable candidates to construct robust dysprosium-based SMMs and to probe their relaxation dynamics.

Keywords: Anisotropy, assembly, hydrazone ligands, coordination geometry, interactions, lanthanide, polynuclear, single molecule magnet, tautomerism.