During the one year outgoing phase at UC Berkeley, research work has been focused on the design and synthesis of new ligands and new lanthanide complexes adapted to the photoswitching of lanthanide-based systems.
1/ We have successfully prepared a new linker and the corresponding bimetallic complex. The light-switching behavior of these systems reveal a complex interplay between different parameters, the stability of the photo-induced isomer being impacted by i) metal coordination, ii) solvent or solid matrix environment. This unexpected result prompted us to investigate more into details these systems and theoretical calculations have been performed in collaboration with this aim.
2/ We have prepared new dysprosium complexes which support a terminal dysprosium-fluoride bond and demonstrated that such architectures are excellent in promoting strong axial magnetic anisotropy by combining luminescence, magnetism and ab initio calculations (in collaboration with Boris Le Guennic). The results have been communicated at the Europen Congress on Molecular Magnetism (Bucarest, August 2017), International Conference on Molecule Based Magnets (Rio, September 2018) and published in Angewandte Chemie.
During the return phase at Université de Rennes 1, research work has been focused on demonstrating a photomagnetic effect.
3/ Based on the work published in Angewandte Chemie, we could obtain a photo-switchable lanthanide complexes that demonstrate photomagnetic effect and therefore reach a central objective of PhotoSMM. Further structural characterization is being finalized before communication of the results.
4/ We have investigated the interplay between metal coordination and photochromism in the synthesized dinuclear complexes. This has involved NMR studies under irradiation. The final photomagnetic measurement will be carried out in the next future.
In line with the dissemination of results plan, I have attended four major international conferences to give oral presentations on my research work. I also participated to the outreach program “Festival des sciences” in the University of Rennes. Finally, the results of the first paper have been highlighted on the Université de Rennes 1 website, and on the CNRS website.
