Molecular Magnetic Investigation of a Family of Octanuclear [Cu6Ln2] Nanoclusters

Reaction of in situ prepared acylhydrazone ligand with Ln­(NO3)3·6H2O and Cu­(OAc)2·H2O resulted in the formation of novel isostructural octanuclear Cu6Ln2 compounds (Ln = Dy (1), Tb (2), Gd (3), Y (4)) with an unprecedented octametallic structure, which can be described as an oblate wheel built up from two structurally similar Cu3 fragments linked together by two nodelike mononuclear lanthanide units. A detailed magnetic analysis reveals that the strong antiferromagnetic Cu···Cu interactions via the Cu–N–N–Cu–N–N–Cu linkage and the anticipated ferromagnetic Cu···Gd coupling makes an overall high-spin ground state in favor of the observation of significant magnetic caloric and SMM-like properties in the isotropic and anisotropic derivatives.