Singly and Triply Linked Magnetic Porphyrin Lanthanide Arrays

[Image: see text] The introduction of paramagnetic metal centers into a conjugated π-system is a promising approach toward engineering spintronic materials. Here, we report an investigation of two types of spin-bearing dysprosium(III) and gadolinium(III) porphyrin dimers: singly meso–meso-linked dimers with twisted conformations and planar edge-fused β,meso,β-linked tapes. The rare-earth spin centers sit out of the plane of the porphyrin, so that the singly linked dimers are chiral, and their enantiomers can be resolved, whereas the edge-fused tape complexes can be separated into syn and anti stereoisomers. We compare the crystal structures, UV–vis–NIR absorption spectra, electrochemistry, EPR spectroscopy, and magnetic behavior of these complexes. Low-temperature SQUID magnetometry measurements reveal intramolecular antiferromagnetic exchange coupling between the Gd(III) centers in the edge-fused dimers (syn isomer: J = −51 ± 2 MHz; anti isomer: J = −19 ± 3 MHz), whereas no exchange coupling is detected in the singly linked twisted complex. The phase-memory times, T(m), are in the range of 8–10 μs at 3 K, which is long enough to test quantum computational schemes using microwave pulses. Both the syn and anti Dy(2) edge-fused tapes exhibit single-molecule magnetic hysteresis cycles at temperatures below 0.5 K with slow magnetization dynamics.