Uncommon lanthanide ions in purely 4f Single Molecule Magnets

Abstract

Since the 1990s and the discovery of the first Single Molecule Magnets (SMMs), chemists and physicists have been working in concert to elaborate such molecular systems and understand their peculiar properties. Especially the use of lanthanide ions in the design of SMMs exploded with the discovery of the first example of mononuclear TbIII-based complex which displayed a slow magnetic relaxation in 2003. This high-degree of interest comes from the diverse potential applications in quantum computing, high-density data storage devices and spintronics. Recently, the specific luminescence properties of the lanthanide ions were correlated to the magnetic ones. Even if the most common lanthanide ions used in the elaboration of SMMs are the DyIII, TbIII and ErIII ions, new SMMs involving others lanthanide ions (YbIII, CeIII, NdIII, HoIII and TmIII) started to emerge. This review presents the research endeavour in the area of these uncommon lanthanide-based SMMs and underlines the different approaches to better understand their physical properties.