Ab initio investigation of magnetic anisotropy in intermediate spin iron(iii) complexes

Mononuclear Fe(iii) complexes commonly exist in high-spin or low-spin states, whereas their occurrence in the intermediate-spin state (S = 3/2) is scarce. The magnetic anisotropy in two trigonal-bipyramidal mononuclear Fe(iii) complexes, $(PMe3)2FeCl3$ (1) and $(PMe2Ph)2FeCl3$ (2), in their intermediate-spin ground state has been examined by ab initio electronic structure calculations. The calculations successfully reproduce the experimental magnetic anisotropic barrier, U_eff in 1 (81 cm⁻¹) and 2 (42 cm⁻¹), which is shown to arise due to thermally assisted quantum tunneling of magnetization from the second Kramer’s doublets. The magnetic anisotropy in both the complexes is found to be significantly influenced by the axial ligands, while the equatorial ligands have negligible contribution. The large reduction in U_eff of 2 has been shown to arise due to the phenyl groups, which results in the lifting of orbital degeneracy of e″ and e′ frontier orbitals and leads to a net quenching of the orbital angular momentum of the metal center causing a diminished spin-orbit splitting in 2. While the crystal structure of 2 shows two phenyl rings out of plane to each other, the present study discovered another stable conformation of 2, where the two phenyl rings are in the same plane (2a). Unlike 2, the planarity of the two phenyl rings in 2a restores the degeneracy of the frontier orbitals, thereby increasing the spin-orbit splitting and a consequent rise in U_eff from 42 to 80 cm⁻¹ in 2a.