A Mn(III) triplesalen-based 1D pearl necklace: exchange interactions and zero-field splittings in a C3-symmetric Mn(III)6 complex.

The reaction of the tert-butyl-substituted triplesalen ligand H(6)talen(t-Bu(2)) with 2.8 equivalents of Mn(OAc)(2) x 4 H(2)O in MeOH in the presence of NaBPh(4) results in the formation of the one-dimensional (1D) coordination polymer {{(talen(t-Bu(2)))Mn(3)(MeOH)}(2)(mu(2)-OAc)(3)}(n)(BPh(4))(2n) ({Mn(III)(6)}(n)(BPh(4))(2n)) which has been characterized by FTIR, elemental analysis, ESI-MS, single-crystal X-ray diffraction and magnetic measurements. The triplesalen ligand (talen(t-Bu(2)))(6-) provides three salen-like coordination compartments bridged in a meta-phenylene arrangement by a phloroglucinol backbone resulting in the trinuclear Mn(III) base unit {(talen(t-Bu(2)))Mn(3)}(3+). Two of these base units are bridged by three inner acetate ligands giving rise to the hexanuclear complex {(talen(t-Bu(2)))Mn(3)(MeOH)}(2)(mu(2)-OAc)(3) (Mn(III)(6)). These complexes are bridged by a single external acetate to form a 1D chain as pearls in a pearl necklace. Variable temperature-variable field and mu(eff)vs. T magnetic data have been analyzed in detail by full-matrix diagonalization of the appropriate spin-Hamiltonian consisting of isotropic exchange, zero-field splitting, and Zeeman interaction taking into account the relative orientation of the D-tensors. Satisfactory reproduction of the experimental data have been obtained for parameters sets J(1) = -(0.60 +/- 0.15) cm(-1), J(2) = -(1.05 +/- 0.15) cm(-1), and D(Mn) = -(3.0 +/- 0.7) cm(-1) with J(1) describing the exchange through the phloroglucinol backbone and J(2) describing the exchange through the inner acetates. The non-necessity to incorporate the bridging outer acetates correlates with the longer Mn-O bonds. The experimental data can neither be analyzed without incorporating zero-field splitting nor by the application of a single effective spin ground state.