Magnetic coordination clusters and networks: synthesis and topological description

With the discovery of the phenomenon of single-molecule magnetism, coordination chemists have turned their attention to synthesizing cluster aggregates of paramagnetic ions. This has led to a plethora of coordination clusters with various topologies and diverse magnetic properties. In this paper, we present ways of describing and understanding such compounds as well as outlining a new approach, which we have recently developed, to describing cluster topology. Our approach is based upon and pays tribute to the huge contribution made to coordination chemistry through the development of the Schlafli symbols for describing architectures. To illustrate the developments that are taking place in modern coordination chemistry, we start with some basic definitions of relevance to what follows. Then we describe approaches to discovering new magnetically interesting 3d/4f clusters, assigning their topological descriptions. Finally, we show how the concepts behind the construction of metal-organic frameworks can be extended to using clusters as nodes in the frameworks to give super metal-organic frameworks.