Assembly of Dy 60 and Dy 30 cage-shaped nanoclusters.

Rapid kinetics, complex and diverse reaction intermediates, and difficult screening make the study of assembly mechanisms of high-nuclearity lanthanide clusters challenging. Here, we synthesize a double-cage dysprosium cluster [Dy 60 (H 2 L 1 ) 24 (OAc) 71 (O) 5 (OH) 3 (H 2 O) 27 ]·6H 2 O·6CH 3 OH·7CH 3 CN (Dy 60 ) by using a multidentate chelate-coordinated diacylhydrazone ligand. Two Dy 30 cages are included in the Dy 60 structure, which are connected via an OAc - moiety. The core of Dy 60 is composed of 8 triangular Dy 3 and 12-fold linear Dy 3 units. We further change the alkali added in the reaction system and successfully obtain a single cage-shaped cluster [Dy 30 (H 2 L 1 ) 12 (OAc) 36 (OH) 4 (H 2 O) 12 ]·2OH·10H 2 O·12CH 3 OH·13CH 3 CN (Dy 30 ) with a perfect spherical cavity, which could be considered an intermediate in Dy 60 formation. Time-dependent, high-resolution electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (HRESI-MS) is used to track the formation of Dy 60 . A possible self-assembly mechanism is proposed. We track the formation of Dy 30 and the six intermediate fragments are screened.