Photo-mediated performance change of a 1,8-dihydroxyanthraquinone-based Dy6 single molecule magnet

Abstract

In photomagnetic materials, changes in the molecular structure or electron distribution caused by light illumination may result in changes in magnetism, enabling regulation of the magnetic behavior of materials. Herein we report a 1,8-dihydroxyanthraquinone-based hexanuclear dysprosium cluster [Dy₆O₂(L¹)₆(OCH₃)₂(CH₃OH)₂(DMSO)₄]·DMSO·CH₃OH (1) obtained from the solvothermal reaction of Dy(OAc)₃·5H₂O with 1,8-dihydroxyanthraquinone (H₂L¹). The six Dy(III) ions in 1 are linked by two μ₄-O, two μ₃-O and ten μ₂-O atoms to construct a rare bicapped tetrahedral Dy₆ skeleton. Magnetic tests showed that the cluster is a single molecule magnet (SMM) under zero field. Upon light irradiation, the terminally coordinated CH₃OH molecules in 1 were partly substituted by lattice DMSO molecules with the SMM performance being significantly tuned by this subtle structural variation. Single molecule magnets with such photomagnetic behavior are rarely reported.