As the scale of microelectronic circuit devices approaches the atomic limit, the study of molecular-based wires and magnets has become more prevalent. Compounds with quasi-1D geometries have been investigated for their electronic conductivity and magnetic properties with potential use as nanoscale circuit components and information storage devices. To increase the number of compositionally tailored molecular systems available to study, we have taken a building-block, bottom-up approach to the development of improved electronic structure and magnetic properties of quasi-1D arrays. Over the past decade, a large family of asymmetric complexes that can assemble into extended arrays has resulted. Lantern (or paddle-wheel) complexes with conventional {O, O} donor carboxylates are legion, but by the use of monothiocarboxylate ligands and hard-soft Lewis acid-base principles, dozens of new lantern complexes of the form [PtM(SOCR)(L)] (M = Mg, Ca, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Zn; R = Ph (tba = thiobenzoate), CH (SAc = thioacetate); L = neutral or anionic ligand) have been prepared. Depending on M and L, new intermolecular arrangements have resulted, and the magnetic properties have proven particularly interesting. In the solid state, the [PtM(SOCR)(L)] building blocks are sometimes isolated, sometimes form dimers, and can be induced to form infinite chains. The versatility of the lantern motif was demonstrated with a range of axial ligands to form both terminal and bridged complexes with various 3d metals and two different substituted thiocarboxylate backbone ligands. Within the dozens of crystallographically characterized compounds that make up this family of lanterns, several different structural motifs of solid-state dimerization were observed and divided into four distinct categories on the basis of their Pt···Pt and Pt···S distances and relative monomer orientations. Among all of these compounds, three novel magnetic phenomena were observed. Initially, long-range antiferromagnetic coupling between two metals more than 8 Å apart was observed in solid-state dimers formed via metallophilic Pt···Pt interactions and could induced by choice of the terminal L group. An infinite chain was prepared in [PtCr(tba)(NCS)] that displays ferromagnetic coupling between Cr centers with J/ k = 1.7(4) K. Homobimetallic quasi-1D chains of the form [Ni(SOCR)(L)] (R = Ph, CH; L = DABCO, pyz) were also prepared with S = 1 {Ni} building blocks in which the Ni centers have two different spin states with weak antiferromagnetic coupling along the chain, such that -0.18 > J/ k > -0.24 K. In the [Ni(tba)(quin)] derivative, a solid-state dimer forms with a bridging square conformation by interlantern NiS interactions and displays unusual S = 1 configurations on both Ni centers and weak antiferromagnetic coupling between them.
