EPR Studies of Lanthanide-Lanthanide Interactions in Triple-Decker Molecular Complexes*

Lanthanide molecular nanomagnets, particularly sandwich-type complexes, have been studied extensively due to their potential application in information technologies [1]. The strong magnetic anisotropy associated with lanthanide ions originates from the large spin-orbit coupling in the 4f shell. However, shielding of the magnetic 4f electrons by the filled 5p and 6s orbitals poses challenges for synthesizing exchange coupled lanthanide compounds. Phthalocyanines (Pc) and porphyrins (Pi) are among the well-known macrocyclic molecules that have been widely used to form multilayered organometallic compounds with trivalent lanthanides [2]. In this work, we study f-f interactions between two lanthanide (Ln) ions in a series of symmetric and asymmetric triple-decker compounds, e.g., Pi-Ln-Pc-Ln-Pi, Pc-Ln-Pc-Ln-Pi, etc. We further explore the possibility of performing a CNOT quantum gate operation using an asymmetric Er-Er compound.
[1] R. Vincent, et. al., Nature, 488, 357 (2012).
[2] N. Ishikawa, et. al., J. Am. Chem. Soc., 124, 11440-11447 (2002).