Synthetic tuning of the quantum properties of open-shell radicaloids

An Air-Stable Carbon-Centered Triradical with a Well-Addressable Quartet Ground State

Organic polyradicals with a high-spin ground state and quantum magnetic properties suitable for spin manipulation are valuable materials for diverse innovative technologies, including quantum devices. However, the typically high reactivity and low stability of conventional polyradicals present a major obstacle to such applications. In this study, a highly stable carbon-centered triradical TR with a quartet ground state and excellent stability (τ1/2 of ∼90 days in air-saturated toluene at room temperature) is achieved, which shows apposite magnetic anisotropy and Zeeman splitting partition with favorable addressability. By virtue of the optimal stability, thorough structural and magnetic characterizations are realized. With X-ray crystallography unambiguously proving the molecular structure, the quartet ground state (ΔED-Q = 0.78 kcal/mol) is confirmed by the SQUID measurements, while the cw- and pulsed EPR techniques offer additional supportive evidence for the high-spin nature. Remarkably, owing to the easily attained magnetic anisotropy, selective excitations between different Zeeman splitting levels are successfully demonstrated with TR in its frozen toluene solution without the requirement for special alignment, which is unprecedented for organic polyradicals. Along with the millisecond spin-lattice relaxation and microsecond coherence time manifested by TR, this triradical is promising for potential coherent spin manipulation applications as a multienergy-level quantum information carrier.

Rational Design of an Air-Stable, High-Spin Diradical with Diazapyrene

Stable carbon-based polyradicals exhibiting strong spin-spin coupling and slow depolarization processes are particularly attractive functional materials. A new molecular motif synthesized by a convenient method that allows the integration of stable, high-spin radicals to (hetero)aromatic polycycles has been developed, as illustrated by a non-Kekulé diradical showing a triplet ground state with long persistency (τ1/2 ≈31 h) in air. Compared to the widely used 1,3-phenylene, the newly designed (diaza)pyrene-4,10-diyl moiety is for the first time demonstrated to confer ferromagnetic (FM) spin coupling, allowing delocalized non-disjoint SOMOs. With the X-ray crystallography unambiguously proving the diradical structure, the triplet ground state was thoroughly characterized. A large ΔES-T of 1.1 kcal/mol, proving the strong FM coupling effect, was revealed consistently by superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) measurements and variable-temperature electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy, while the zero-field splitting and triplet nutation characters were examined by continuous-wave and pulsed EPR spectroscopy. A millisecond spin-lattice relaxation time was also detected. The current study not only offers a new molecular motif enabling FM coupling between carbon-based spins, but more importantly presents a general method for installing stable polyradicals into functional π-systems.

Structural Expansion of Cyclohepta[def]fluorene towards Azulene-Embedded Non-Benzenoid Nanographenes

Non-benzenoid non-alternant nanographenes (NGs) have attracted increasing attention on account of their distinct electronic and structural features in comparison to their isomeric benzenoid counterparts. In this work, we present a series of unprecedented azulene-embedded NGs on Au(111) during the attempted synthesis of cyclohepta[def]fluorene-based high-spin non-Kekulé structure. Comprehensive scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and non-contact atomic force microscopy (nc-AFM) evidence the structures and conformations of these unexpected products. The dynamics of the precursor bearing 9-(2,6-dimethylphenyl)anthracene and dihydro-dibenzo-cyclohepta[def]fluorene units and its reaction products on the surface are analyzed by density functional theory (DFT) and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Our study sheds light on the fundamental understanding of precursor design for the fabrication of π-extended non-benzenoid NGs on a metal surface.

Benzo-Extended Cyclohepta[def]fluorene Derivatives with Very Low-Lying Triplet States

Open-shell non-alternant polycyclic hydrocarbons (PHs) are attracting increasing attention due to their promising applications in organic spintronics and quantum computing. Herein we report the synthesis of three cyclohepta[def]fluorene-based diradicaloids (1-3), by fusion of benzo rings on its periphery for the thermodynamic stabilization, as evidenced by multiple characterization techniques. Remarkably, all of them display a very narrow optical energy gap (E_g ^opt =0.52-0.69 eV) and persistent stability under ambient conditions (t_1/2 =11.7-33.3 h). More importantly, this new type of diradicaloids possess a low-lying triplet state with an extremely small singlet-triplet energy gap, as low as 0.002 kcal mol^-1 , with a clear dependence on the molecular size. This family of compounds thus offers a new route to create non-alternant open-shell PHs with high-spin ground states, and opens up novel possibilities and insights into understanding the structure-property relationships.