Toward the design of ferromagnetic molecular complexes: magnetostructural correlations in ferromagnetic triply bridged dinuclear Cu(II) compounds containing carboxylato and hydroxo bridges.

In the present work we present a comprehensive study of the magneto-structural correlations of a series of ferromagnetic triply heterobridged Cu(II) dinuclear compounds containing [Cu(2)(mu-O(2)CR)(mu-OH)(mu-X)(L)(2)](2+) ions (where X = OH(2), Cl(-), OMe(-) and L = bpy, phen, dpyam) which have the particularity of being all ferromagnetic. The present theoretical study, based on hybrid density functional theory (DFT) calculations, leads to strong conclusions about the role of the pentacoordination geometry of the Cu(II) ions (square base pyramidal (SP) or trigonal bipyramidal (TBP) coordination) and the nature of the third bridging ligand in determining the final value of the magnetic coupling constants in this series of compounds. These investigations point toward the existence of a maximum value for the ferromagnetic interaction and may offer some useful information to synthetic chemists aiming at obtaining new compounds with enhanced ferromagnetism.