EPR Study of Ligand Effects in Spin Triads of Bis(o-Semiquinonato)Copper(II) Complexes

We report the X-band (9 GHz) electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) study of series of bis(o-semiquinonato)copper(II) complexes with different ligands. It was found previously, that exchange interactions in spin triads of these compounds are very sensitive to the structure of the ligand coordinated to the central copper(II) ion. Ligand moderates the copper-radical and radical-radical exchange interactions and strongly changes the magnetic properties of the compound. Depending on a ligand, ferromagnetic or antiferromagnetic character of exchange dominates in the system. The EPR study of these complexes allowed us to obtain information on zero-field splitting parameters and their distributions in the studied compounds. The EPR results compliment previously obtained spectroscopic data on these compounds and suggest the pronounced plasticity of the clusters manifested in the broad distributions of their rhombicity parameters.