title: Molecular magnetic investigation of a family of octanuclear [Cu₆Ln₂] nanoclusters.
abstract: Reaction of in situ prepared acylhydrazone ligand with Ln(NO3)3·6H2O and Cu(OAc)2·H2O resulted in the formation of novel isostructural octanuclear Cu6Ln2 compounds (Ln = Dy (1), Tb (2), Gd (3), Y (4)) with an unprecedented octametallic structure, which can be described as an oblate wheel built up from two structurally similar Cu3 fragments linked together by two nodelike mononuclear lanthanide units. A detailed magnetic analysis reveals that the strong antiferromagnetic Cu···Cu interactions via the Cu-N-N-Cu-N-N-Cu linkage and the anticipated ferromagnetic Cu···Gd coupling makes an overall high-spin ground state in favor of the observation of significant magnetic caloric and SMM-like properties in the isotropic and anisotropic derivatives.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Resource Utilization, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Changchun 130022, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Shufang
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Xue
authors.forename: Yun-Nan
authors.initials: YN
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.forename: Lang
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: Haixia
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Jinkui
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Tang