Self-assembled structures by holmium dinuclear complexes and their magnetic properties

Abstract

Lanthanide elements exhibit unique luminescence and magnetic properties derived from 4f orbital electrons. We have focused on holmium (Ho), which has the highest magnetic moment among lanthanide elements and have been working on preparing liquid crystal materials based on Ho complexes. In this study, we fabricated Ho dinuclear complexes containing two Ho elements in a molecule and created new molecular assemblies with excellent magnetic properties. The Ho dinuclear complexes were found to form hexagonal columnar liquid crystalline phases and showed magnetic field response to a neodymium magnet at room temperature. The mass magnetization measurements confirmed that the complexes are paramagnetic and have magnetic properties derived from Ho.