Investigation of Magnetic Properties in the Case of Three Families of 1-Dimensional Magnets:M(II)A(4,4'-bipyridine);M=Fe,Co,Ni,Cu A=Cl2,(N3)2,(ox)

Abstract

Magnetic properties of three families of metal-organic coordinated networks which have the general form of M(II)A(4,4'-bipyridine), where M=Fe, Ni, Co, and Cu and A=Cl2, (ox) and (N3)2, are studied in this dissertation. Novel Ni(N3)2(4,4'-bipyridine), Co(N3)2(4,4'-bipyridine) and Cu(N3)2(4,4'-bipyridine) have been synthesized. We applied different synthesis procedures and produced Ni, Co, and Cu azide compounds for the first time, thus leaving the hydrothermal route procedure. Powder x-ray diffraction at room temperature was done in order to establish the crystal structure of the members of these three families. It was found that all of them crystallize in orthorhombic structure, where transitional metals have an octahedral coordination. Since all three families have identical crystal structure we got opportunity to examine how ligands facilitate magnetic interaction between metallic centers and also to test existing magnetic theoretical models. Since 4,4'-bipyridine is much longer than other ligands, our systems can be considered as 1-D magnetic systems. Their interchain magnetic interactions are very weak, and they order magnetically at very low temperatures of the order of few K. Measurements of M(H) at temperatures T=1.9K and T=2K and χ(T) in different external magnetic fields in zero field and field cooled modes have been made. In the case of MCl2(4,4'-bipyridine) family of compounds, we observed ferromagnetic interactions between metal ions within the chains and antiferromagnetic interactions between adjacent chains. M(ox)(4,4'-bipyridine) family of metal-organic compounds has antiferromagnetic interactions between the transitional metal ions within the chain, while weak ferromagnetic interaction exists between the chains. All members in the M(N3)2(4,4'-bipyridine) family except in the case of the copper compound were found to have ferromagnetic interactions between metal ions within the chains and then antiferromagnetic interactions between adjacent chains. The copper compound does not show magnetic ordering in the temperature range we considered. All the metal ions in these compounds were detected in high spin states. The magnetic susceptibility data was fit to appropriate 1-D models, which in the case of MCl2(4,4'-bipyridine) and M(N3)2(4,4'-bipyridine) were the Classical Spin Fisher model, and the Bonner Fisher model in the case M(ox)(4,4'-bipyridine). The experimental results and fitting to the appropriate model with the accuracy of 0.995 suggests that shorter Cl-M-Cl distances facilitate ferromagnetic interactions, which are more sensitive to the total spin value then to the sole distance between metal ions. The magnetic behavior of M(N3)2(4,4'-bipyridine) family of coordinated metal-organic compounds is very interesting because family members exhibit both ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic behavior. The ferromagnetic characteristics decrease with decreasing spin. Fitting the results for all compounds of the M(ox)(4,4'-bipyridine) family have shown that strong anisotropy exists in all of them, being highest in Ni(ox)(4,'4-bipyridine) and lowest in Co(ox)(4,4'-bipyridine). Specific heat measurements were performed in the case of cobalt and copper azide compounds and then compared with previously obtained results for the iron coordinated network of the same family. Although none of these compounds show the characteristic λ shaped transition indicating magnetic ordering, all of them have unusually large values of the constant γ, which indicates significant magnetic contribution to the observed specific heat, since the free electron contribution in these observed families is negligible. We have concluded that total spin of the transitional metal plays a more important role than the distance between ions within the chain in determining magnitude of interaction, and that (N3)2 is a better facilitator of ferromagnetic interaction between ions than Cl2.