Single-Ion Magnet and Photoluminescence Properties of Lanthanide(III) Coordination Polymers Based on Pyrimidine-4,6-Dicarboxylate

Abstract

Herein, we report the magnetic and photoluminescence characterization of coordination polymers (CP) built from the combination of lanthanide(III) ions, pyrimidine-4,6-dicarboxylate (pmdc) ligand and a co-ligand with formula {[Dy(μ-pmdc)(μ-ox)0.5(H2O)3]·2H2O}n (1-Dy), {[Dy(μ3-pmdc)(μ-ox)0.5(H2O)2] ~2.33H2O}n (2-Dy), {[Dy2(μ3-pmdc)(μ4-pmdc)(μ-ox)(H2O)3]·5H2O}n (3-Dy), {[Ln(μ3-pmdc)(μ-ox)0.5(H2O)2]·H2O}n (where Ln(III) = Nd (4-Nd), Sm (4-Sm), Eu (4-Eu) and Dy (4-Dy)) and {[Dy(μ4-pmdc)(NO3)(H2O)]·H2O}n (5-Dy). It must be noted the presence of oxalate anion acting as ditopic co-ligand in compounds 1-Dy, 2-Dy, 3-Dy and 4-Ln, whereas in 5-Dy the nitrate anion plays the role of terminal co-ligand. Direct current measurements carried out for the dysprosium-based CPs reveal almost negligible interactions between Dy3+ ions within the crystal structure, which is confirmed by computed values of the exchange parameters J. In addition, alternating current measurements show field-induced single-molecule magnet (SMM) behavior in compounds 1-Dy, 2-Dy, 4-Dy and 5-Dy, whereas slight-frequency dependence is also observed in 3-Dy. Solid state emission spectra performed at room temperature for those compounds emitting in visible region confirm the occurrence of significant ligand-to-lanthanide charge transfer in view of the strong characteristic emissions for all lanthanide ions. Emission decay curves were also recorded to estimate the emission lifetimes for the reported compounds, in addition to the absolute quantum yields. Among them, the high quantum yield of 25.0% measured for 4-Eu is to be highlighted as a representative example of the good emissive properties of the materials.