Targeted construction of azido-bridged Ni4 complexes with decisive effect of mu-1,3-azide torsion on the spin ground state.

Highly preorganized pyrazolate-based dinickel(II) systems are shown to constitute suitable building blocks for the targeted assembly of azido-bridged Ni4 complexes with rectangular arrangement of the metal ions. A set of such complexes has been prepared and structurally characterized. mu-1,1-Azide binding within the bimetallic sub-units is controlled by the chosen topology of the pyrazolate ligand scaffold and gives rise to the anticipated ferromagnetic intradimer coupling. Overall magnetic properties of the Ni4 array, however, are mainly determined by the Ni-NNN-Ni torsion of the interdimer mu-1,3-azido linkages. According to the crystallographic results, these torsion angles vary over a wide range, and partial disorder of the mu-1,3-azide bridge in one of the compounds indicates high structural flexibility even in the solid state. Two of the compounds represent rare examples of molecular complexes with a Ni-NNN-Ni torsion angle of almost exactly 90 degrees . The resulting magnetic ground state (neglecting zero-field splitting) is either S = 0 or S = 4 depending on the Ni-NNN-Ni torsion, and in one case a drastic change is observed upon extrusion of lattice solvent.