Abstract
The effective combination of chirality and magnetism in a single crystalline material can lead to fascinating cross-effects, such as magneto-chiral dichroism. Among a large variety of chiral ligands utilized in the design and synthesis of chiral magnetic materials, helicenes seem to be the most appealing ones, due to the exceptionally high specific rotation values that reach thousands of deg·cm3·g−1·dm−1, which is two orders of magnitude higher than for compounds with chiral carbon atoms. Despite the sizeable family of transition metal complexes with helicene-type ligands, there are only a few examples of such complexes with lanthanide ions. In this mini-review, we describe the most recent developments in the field of lanthanide-based complexes with helicene-type ligands and summarize insights regarding the further exploration of this family of compounds towards multifunctional chiral lanthanide single molecule magnets (Ln-SMMs).
Highlights
Helicenes are fascinating molecules with inherent chirality arising from the screw shape of their ortho-fused polycyclic skeleton
The presented review of the lanthanide–helicene complexes shows that there are only five types of molecules reported to date, with only eleven compounds of this type studied in total
These complexes were obtained using a classical coordination chemistry approach, where the helicene is equipped with a classical coordination group such as 2,2’bpy
Summary
Helicenes are fascinating molecules with inherent chirality arising from the screw shape of their ortho-fused polycyclic skeleton. The efficient merging of the chirality of helicenes and the magnetism of lanthanide ions in a single molecule can lead to the observation of very rare magneto-chiral cross-effects at the molecular level, resulting in truly multifunctional molecular devices. The theory of MChD predicts strong effects in the case of f -f transitions of lanthanides (in the accessible UV-visIR range) [49], which should be further enhanced by including enantiopure helicenes in the coordination sphere of the complex. MChD predicts strong effects in the case of f-f transitions of lanthanides (in the accessible UV-vis-IR range) [49], which should be further enhanced by including enantiopure helicenes in the coordination sphere of the complex. Conclusions regarding the future direction in this exciting subfield of molecular magnetism
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
