Hourglass-Shaped Homo- and Heteronuclear Nonanuclear Lanthanide Clusters: Structures, Magnetism, Photoluminescence, and Theoretical Analysis.

Synthesis of nonameric cationic clusters [Dy 9 (acac) 16 (μ 3 -OH) 8 (μ 4 -OH) 2 ]OH·6H 2 O ( 1 ), [Dy 8 Tb (acac) 16 (μ 3 -OH) 8 (μ 4 -OH) 2 ]OH·2H 2 O ( 2 ), and [Gd 9 (acac) 16 (μ 3 -OH) 8 (μ 4 -OH) 2 ]OH·6H 2 O ( 3 ) (acac = acetylacetonate) is reported. The emission spectrum of 1 shows Dy(III) ion characteristic bands assignable to the 4 F 9/2 → 6 H J ( J = 15/2 to 9/2) transitions. Emission due to both Dy(III) and Tb(III) ions is observed for 2 in the visible range, with Tb(III) specific bands appearing due to the 5 D 4 → 7 F J ( J = 6, 4, and 3) transitions. Cluster 3 exhibits a significant magnetocaloric effect (MCE), with -Δ S m values increasing with decrease in temperature and increase in field, reaching -Δ S m max = 20.98 J kg -1 K -1 at 2 K and 9 T. Isotropic magnetic coupling constants ( J s ) in 3 derived from density functional theory (DFT) calculations reveal that the exchange interactions are antiferromagnetic and weak. Compound 3 possesses S = 7/2 ground state arising from the central Gd(III) ion along with several nested excited states due to competing antiferromagnetic interactions that yield reasonably large MCE values. Utilizing computed exchange coupling interactions, we have performed ab initio CASSCF/RASSI-SO/POL_ANISO calculations on antiferromagnetic 1 and 2 to estimate the exchange interactions using the Lines model. For 2 , Dy(III)···Tb(III) exchange interactions were extracted for the first time and were found to be weakly antiferromagnetically coupled.