New Structural Form of a Tetranuclear Lanthanide Hydroxo Cluster: Dy₄ Analogue Display Slow Magnetic Relaxation

A series of tetranuclear lanthanide (Ln = Tb, Dy, Ho) hydroxo clusters has been synthesized by reaction of LnCl₃·6H₂O (Ln = Tb (<b>1</b>), Dy (<b>2</b>), Ho (<b>3</b>)) with <i>o</i>-vanilin based schiff base ligand 2-(2,3 dihydroxpropyl imino methyl) 6-methoxy phenol (H₃L) in methanol and in the presence of triethylamine as base. The solid state structures of all the products were established by single crystal X-ray diffraction technique. Magnetism studies reveal that Dy₄ analogue exhibits slow magnetic relaxation at low temperatures