Incorporation of Silicon–Oxygen Tetrahedron into Novel High-Nuclearity Nanosized 3d–4f Heterometallic Clusters

Abstract

By the anionic template strategy, we have, for the first time, succeeded in introducing SiO₄^4- into 3d-4f huge clusters, obtaining two novel nanosized clusters with interesting nanosized cores of [Ln₇₈Ni₆₄₍₆₂₎Si₆] (1, Ln = Gd; 2, Ln = Eu). To the best of our knowledge, they are the largest heterometallic clusters incorporated with Si-O tetrahedra. In addition, compound 1 shows a maximum magnetic entropy (-Δ S_m) of 40.63 J kg^-1 K^-1 at 3.0 K at 7 T.