Syntheses, crystal structures, magnetic and luminescence properties of five novel lanthanide complexes of nitronyl nitroxide radical

•A new halogen phenyl-substituted nitronyl-nitroxide radical was designed.•Five new Ln(III) radical complexes have been synthesized and characterized.•The reasonable evaluation the magnetic interactions between Ln(III) ions and radical is meaningful.•These complexes show good luminescent properties.

Five novel Ln(III) complexes based on a new nitronyl nitroxide radical have been synthesized, characterized structurally and magnetically: [Ln(hfac)3(NITPh-3-Br-4-OMe)2] (Ln(III)=Eu(1), Gd(2), Tb(3), Dy(4), Ho(5); hfac=hexafluoroacetylacetonate; and NITPh-3-Br-4-OMe=2-3′-Br-4′-methoxyphenyl-4,4,5,5-tetramethylimidazoline-1-oxyl-3-oxide). The single-crystal structures analyses show that these complexes have similar mononuclear tri-spin structures, in which central Ln(III) ions are all eight coordinated by three hfac molecules and two NITPh-3-Br-4-OMe radicals. The variable-temperature magnetic susceptibility studies reveal the antiferromagnetic interactions between the paramagnetic ions (Ln(III) and radicals) in complexes 1, 2, 3 and 5 and ferromagnetic interaction in complex 4. The luminescence characterizations of complexes Eu(1), Tb(3) and Dy(4) are also studied in this paper.

Graphical abstractUsing a novel halogen phenyl-substituted nitronyl-nitroxide radical, we obtained and characterized five isostructural lanthanide mononuclear tri-spin compounds. Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide