Thermal expansion and magnetic properties of benzoquinone-bridged dinuclear rare-earth complexes

The synthesis and structural characterization of two benzoquinone-bridged dinuclear rare-earth complexes [BQ(MCl2·THF3)2] (BQ = 2,5-bisoxide-1,4-benzoquinone; M = Y (1), Dy (2)) are described. Of these reported metal complexes, the dysprosium analogue 2 is the first discrete bridged dinuclear lanthanide complex in which both metal centres reside in pentagonal bipyramidal environments. Interestingly, both complexes undergo significant thermal expansion upon heating from 120 K to 293 K as illustrated by single-crystal X-ray and powder diffraction experiments. AC magnetic susceptibility measurements reveal that 2 does not show the slow relation of magnetization in zero dc field. The absent of single-molecule behaviour in 2 arises from the rotation of the principal magnetic axis as compared to the pseudo-C5 axis of the pentagonal bipyramidal environment as suggested by ab initio calculations. The cyclic voltammetry and chemical reduction experiments demonstrated that complexes 1 and 2 can be reduced to radical species containing [BQ3˙−]. This study establishes efficient synthetic strategy to make bridged redox-active multinuclear lanthanide complexes with a pentagonal bipyramidal coordination environment that are potential precursors for single-molecule magnets.