Two new ligand
s, 2-[(bi
s(2-pyridylmethyl)amino)methyl]-4-methylphenol (HL) and 2-[(bi
s(2-pyridylmethyl)amino)methyl]-4-methyl-6-(methylthio)phenol (HSL), were
synthe
sized and were u
sed to prepare the trinuclear copper(II) complex {[CuSL(Cl)]
2Cu}(PF
6)
2·H
2O (
1) and the corre
sponding binuclear complexe
s [Cu
2(SL)
2](PF
6)
2 (
2) and [Cu
2L
2](PF
6)
2 (
3).The cry
stal
structure of
1 show
s two different coordination environment
s: two
square ba
se pyramidal center
s (Cu1 andCu1a, related by a
C2 axe
s), acting a
s ligand
s of a di
storted
square planar copper center (Cu2) by mean
s of the
sulfuratom of the SCH
3 sub
stituent and the bridging phenoxo oxygen atom of the ligand (Cu2-S = 2.294 Å). Compound
s 2and
3 show two equivalent di
storted
square ba
se pyramidal copper(II) center
s, bridged in an axial-equatorial fa
shion bytwo phenoxo group
s, thu
s defining an a
symmetric Cu
2O
2 core. A long copper-
sulfur di
stance mea
sured in
2 (2.9261(18)Å)
sugge
st
s a weak bonding interaction. Thi
s interaction induce
s a tor
sion angle between the methylthio group and thephenoxo plane re
sulting in a dihedral angle of 41.4(5)
s/entitie
s/deg.gif">. A
still larger di
stortion i
s ob
served in
1 with a dihedral angle of74.0(6)
s/entitie
s/deg.gif">. DFT calculation
s for
1 gave a ferromagnetic exchange between fir
st neighbor
s interaction, the calculated
Jvalue for thi
s interaction being +11.7 cm
-1. In addition, an antiferromagnetic exchange for
1 wa
s obtained for the
secondneighbor interaction with a
J value of -0.05 cm
-1. The Bleaney-Bower
s equation wa
s u
sed to fit the experimentalmagnetic
su
sceptibility data for
2 and
3; the be
st fit wa
s obtained with
J value
s of +3.4 and -16.7 cm
-1, re
spectively.DFT calculation
s for
2 and
3 confirm the nature and the value
s of the
J con
stant
s obtained by the fit of the experimentaldata. ESR and magnetic
studie
s on the reported compound
s show a weak exchange interaction between the copper(II)center
s. The low value
s obtained for the coupling con
stant
s can be explained in term
s of a poor overlap between themagnetic orbital
s, due to the axial-equatorial phenoxo bridging mode ob
served in the
se complexe
s.