Isolated dysprosocenium cations, [Dy(CpR)2]+ (CpR = substituted cyclopentadienyl), have recently been shown to exhibit superior single-molecule magnet (SMM) properties over closely related complexes with equatorially-bound ligands. However, gauging the crossover point at which the CpR substituents are large enough to prevent equatorial ligand binding, but small enough to approach the metal closely and generate strong crystal field splitting, has required laborious synthetic optimization. We therefore created the computer program, AtomAccess, to predict the accessibility of a metal binding site and its ability to accommodate additional ligands. Here we apply AtomAccess to rapidly screen a series of derivatized dysprosium metallocene fragments of varying steric bulk in silico, allowing us to identify the crossover point for equatorial coordination in [Dy(CpR)2]+ cations, and hence predict a cation that is at the cusp of stability without equatorial interactions, viz. [Dy(Cpttt)(Cp*)]+ (Cpttt = C5H2tBu3-1,2,4, Cp* = C5Me5). Upon synthesizing this cation we found it crystallizes as either a contact ion-pair, [Dy(Cpttt)(Cp*){Al[OC(CF3)3]4-k-F}], or separated ion-pair polymorph, [Dy(Cpttt)(Cp*)][Al{OC(CF3)3}4]C6H6. These complexes, together with their precursors and yttrium analogs, have been characterized by NMR and ATR-IR spectroscopy, elemental analysis, powder and single crystal X-ray diffraction, SQUID magnetometry and ab initio calculations. We find that the contact ion-pair shows inferior SMM properties to the separated ion-pair, as expected, due to faster Raman and quantum tunneling of magnetization relaxation processes. The experimental verification of the predicted crossover point for equatorial coordination in this work indicates that programs like AtomAccess have significant potential to boost efficiency in exploratory synthetic chemistry.

The effects of external pressure on a high-performing dysprosocenium single-molecule magnet are investigated using a combination of X-ray diffraction, magnetometry and theoretical calculations. The effective energy barrier (Ueff) decreases from...

Synthesis of heteroleptic yttrium and dysprosium 1,2,4-tris(trimethylsilyl)cyclopentadienyl complexes

We perform magnetization sweeps on the high-performing single-molecule magnet [Dy­(Cpttt)2]­[B­(C6F5)4] (Cpttt = C5H2 t Bu3-1,2,4; t Bu = C­(CH3)3) to determine the quantum tunneling gap of the ground-state avoided crossing at zero-field, finding a value on the order of 10–7 cm–1. In addition to the pure crystalline material, we also measure the tunnel splitting of [Dy­(Cpttt)2]­[B­(C6F5)4] dissolved in dichloromethane (DCM) and 1,2-difluorobenzene (DFB). We find that concentrations of 200 or 100 mM [Dy­(Cpttt)2]­[B­(C6F5)4] in these solvents increases the size of the tunneling gap compared to the pure sample, despite a similarity in the strength of the dipolar fields, indicating that either a structural or vibrational change due to the environment increases quantum tunneling rates.