Two Bulky-Decorated Triangular Dysprosium Aggregates Conserving Vortex-Spin Structure

The self-assembly of dysprosium­(III) with the tailored chemical modification of the vanillin group affords two decorated Dy3 compounds, namely, [Dy3(μ3-OH)2­(Hpovh–)3­(NO3)3­(CH3­OH)2­H2O]·NO3·3CH3OH·2H2O (2) and [Dy3­(μ3-OH)2­(H2­vovh–)3­Cl2­(CH3­OH)­(H2O)3]­[Dy3­(μ3-OH)2­(H2­vovh–)3­Cl2­(H2O)4]·Cl4·2CH3­OH·2CH3­CN·7H2O (3), where H2povh = N-(pyridylmethylene)-o-vanilloylhydrazone and H3vovh = N-vanillidene-o-vanilloylhydrazone. Of particular interest is that those two title Dy3 compounds maintain the peculiar vortex-spin structure of the ground nonmagnetic doublet. Complex 2 displays frequency-dependent slow magnetic relaxation, while 3 still inherits the single-molecule-magnet behavior as the parent Dy3 prototype. The dissimilar dynamic magnetic behavior originates from the structural differences in light of the coordination environment of DyIII ions, which influence the local tensor of anisotropy and crystal-field splitting on each Dy site.