The First One-Pot Synthesis of Multinuclear 3d-4f Metal–Organic Compounds Involving a Polytopic N,O-Donor Ligand Formed in Situ

In this work we present 16 new 3d-4f metal-organic comounds, which are synthesized by a one-pot method with one uncommon polytopic N,O-donor ligand formed in situ. All these compounds are characterized by single crystal X-ray diffraction, which reveals isomorphism for them and a special heterometallic trinuclear structure in a perfect linear arrangement. Within this trinuclear unit, the metal­(3d)-O-metal­(4f) angle and metal­(3d)-to-metal­(4f) distance is exceptionally small, to our best knowledge, which should present the smallest one in the literature. Moreover, the magnetic properties of partial compounds are explored, revealing that at high temperature paramagnetic behavior is observed and the slow decrease is mainly due to a crystal field effect, at the low temperature antiferromagnetic interaction or magnetic anisotropy operates.