Incorporation and Deposition of Spin Crossover Materials into and onto Electrospun Nanofibers

We synthesized iron(II)-triazole spin crossover compounds of the type [Fe(atrz)(3)]X(2) and incorporated and deposited them on electrospun polymer nanofibers. For this, we used two separate electrospinning methods with the goal of obtaining polymer complex composites with intact switching properties. In view of possible applications, we chose iron(II)-triazole-complexes that are known to exhibit spin crossover close to ambient temperature. Therefore, we used the complexes [Fe(atrz)(3)]Cl(2) and [Fe(atrz)(3)](2ns)(2) (2ns = 2-Naphthalenesulfonate) and deposited those on fibers of polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) and incorporated them into core–shell-like PMMA fiber structures. These core–shell structures showed to be inert to outer environmental influences, such as droplets of water, which we purposely cast on the fiber structure, and it did not rinse away the used complex. We analyzed both the complexes and the composites with IR-, UV/Vis, Mössbauer spectroscopy, SQUID magnetometry, as well as SEM and EDX imaging. The analysis via UV/Vis spectroscopy, Mössbauer spectroscopy, and temperature-dependent magnetic measurements with the SQUID magnetometer showed that the spin crossover properties were maintained and were not changed after the electrospinning processes.