An 'Intermetallic' Molecular Nanomagnet with the Lanthanide Coordinated Only by Transition Metals

The best performing molecular nanomagnets are currently designed by carefully arranging p-element donor atoms (usually carbon, nitrogen and/or oxygen) around the central magnetic ion. Inspired by the structure of the hardest intermetallic magnet SmCo5, we have demonstrated a nanomagnetic molecule where the central lanthanide (Ln) ion Er is coordinated solely by three transition metal (TM) ions in a perfectly trigonal planar fashion. The molecule [Er(ReCp2)3] (ErRe3) constitutes the first example of a molecular nanomagnet (MNM; or single molecule magnet SMM) with unsupported Ln-TM bonds and paves the way towards molecular intermetallics with strong direct magnetic exchange interactions. Such interactions are believed to be crucial for quenching the quantum tunneling of magnetization which limits the application of Ln-SMMs as sub-nanometer magnetic memory units.