Large Magnetic Anisotropy in Mono- and Binuclear cobalt(II) Complexes: The Role of the Distortion of the Coordination Sphere in Validity of the Spin-Hamiltonian Formalism.

To get a better insight into understanding the factors affecting the enhancement of the magnetic anisotropy in single molecule (single ion) magnets, two cobalt(II) complexes based on a tridentate ligand 2,6-di(thiazol-2-yl)pyridine substituted at the 4-position with N -methyl-pyrrol-2-yl have been synthesized and studied by X-ray crystallography, AC and DC magnetic data, FIRMS and HFEPR spectra, and theoretical calculations. The change of the counteranion in starting Co(II) salts results in the formation of pentacoordinated mononuclear [Co(mpyr-dtpy)Cl 2 ]·2MeCN ( 1 ) complex and binuclear [Co(mpyr-dtpy) 2 ][Co(NCS) 4 ] ( 2 ) compound. The observed marked distortion of trigonal bipyramid geometry in 1 and cationic octahedral and anionic tetrahedral units in 2 brings up a question about the validity of the spin-Hamiltonian formalism and the possibility of determining the value and sign of the zero-field splitting D parameter. Both complexes exhibit field-induced slow magnetic relaxation with two or three relaxation channels at B DC = 0.3 T. The high-frequency relaxation time in the reciprocal form τ(HF) -1 = CT n develops according to the Raman relaxation mechanism (for 2 , n = 8.8) and the phonon-bottleneck-like mechanism (for 1 , n = 2.3). The high-frequency relaxation time at T = 2.0 K and B DC = 0.30 T is τ(HF) = 96 and 47 μs for 1 and 2 , respectively.