Binuclear complexes as tectons in designing supramolecular solid-state architectures

Oligonuclear complexes as well as coordination polymers with various network topologies can be obtained by using homo- or heterobinuclear complexes as starting materials. These building blocks are stable complexes, where the metal ions are held together by compartmental ligands, or alkoxo-bridged Cu(II) species. The binuclear nodes can be connected through appropriate exo-dentate ligands, or through metal-containing anions (e.g., [M(CN)(6)](3-), M = Cr-III, Fe-III, Co-III). A rich variety of 3d-3d and 3d-4f heterometallic complexes, with interesting architectures and topologies of the spin carriers, has been obtained. A particular case is the one concerning the 3d-4f binuclear nodes. Following this strategy, we were able to obtain coordination polymers containing three different spin carriers (2p-M-4f; 3d-3d'-4f).