title: Towards a better understanding of magnetic interactions within m-phenylene alpha-nitronyl nitroxide and imino nitroxide based radicals, part III: Magnetic exchange in a series of triradicals and tetraradicals based on the phenyl acetylene and biphenyl coupling units.
abstract: The present work completes and extends our previous reports on the determination of the magnetic ground state and on the strength of the through bond exchange coupling within series of biradicals. This knowledge was subsequently exploited for the analysis of the magnetic interactions in their crystals. We report here the studies of series of triradicals incorporating alpha-nitronyl nitroxides (NN) or alpha-imino nitroxides (IN) as terminal radical fragments connected through a m-phenylene coupling unit in one case and a phenyl acetylene unit in other case. Tetraradical derivatives have also been studied. The studies of isolated molecules (EPR in solution and DFT calculations) allow the assessment of the magnetic interactions through the magnetic coupling unit. All triradical derivatives are found to exhibit a quartet ground state, whereas a singlet ground state is determined for the tetraradical. This last result reinforces previous findings that the singlet ground state is favoured in related biradicals involving similar m-phenylene couplers. Moreover, the through bond magnetic exchange coupling for the ortho-meta connectivity could be demonstrated as being ferromagnetic, thus ascertaining our previous hypotheses. The magnetic properties of the triradicals and tetraradicals in their solid state have been rationalized by using a previously proposed methodology, allowing to identify the most relevant magnetic pathways.
authors.affiliation: Institut de Chimie Moléculaire et des Matériaux d'Orsay bâtiment 420, Université Paris-Sud, 91120 Orsay, France.
authors.forename: Laure
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Catala
authors.forename: Jacques
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Le Moigne
authors.forename: Nathalie
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Gruber
authors.forename: Juan J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Novoa
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Rabu
authors.forename: Elie
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Belorizky
authors.forename: Philippe
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Turek