Meta-Atom Behavior in Clusters Revealing Large Spin Ground States

The field of single molecule magnetism remains predicated on super- and double exchange mechanisms to engender large spin ground states. An alternative approach to achieving high-spin architectures involves synthesizing weak-field clusters featuring close M–M interactions to produce a single valence orbital manifold. Population of this orbital manifold in accordance with Hund’s rules could potentially yield thermally persistent high-spin ground states under which the valence electrons remain coupled. We now demonstrate this effect with a reduced hexanuclear iron cluster that achieves an S = 19/2 (χMT ≈ 53 cm3 K/mol) ground state that persists to 300 K, representing the largest spin ground state persistent to room temperature reported to date. The reduced cluster displays single molecule magnet behavior manifest in both variable-temperature zero-field 57Fe Mössbauer and magnetometry with a spin reversal barrier of 42.5(8) cm–1 and a magnetic blocking temperature of 2.9 K (0.059 K/min).