Synthesis of a Series of Monophthalocyaninato Cyclen Heavy Lanthanide(III) Complexes with Tetragonal Symmetry.

A series of the new monophthalocyaninato lanthanide complexes, [Ln(Pc)(cyclen)]Cl (Ln = Y, Tb, Dy, Ho, Er, Tm, and Yb; Pc = phthalocyaninato; cyclen = 1,4,7,10-tetraazacyclododecane) was synthesized and characterized. The crystallographic study of monophthalocyaninato complexes with a capping macrocyclic ligand having no π-conjugation while keeping the 4-fold symmetry is presented for the first time. All the six complexes were crystallized in a tetragonal structure of the I4mm space group. In addition to this, the Tb complex exhibited a triclinic crystal structure of the P1̅ space group. All of the complexes are isostructural, where both Pc and cyclen are coordinated to an Ln3+ ion giving an eight-coordinate square-antiprismatic geometry. The skew angle between the Pc and cyclen ligands was 45° in the tetragonal crystals and 41.5° in the triclinic crystal. The metal-nitrogen bond lengths were shorter on the Pc ligand side than cyclen side, presumably due to the difference in the charges of the ligands and the steric factor.