Relaxation dynamics of identical trigonal bipyramidal cobalt molecules with different local symmetries and packing arrangements: magnetostructural correlations and ab inito calculations

A family of isostructural, mononuclear CoII complexes have been synthesized in which the CoII ions reside in distorted trigonal bipyrami-dal coordination environments. The degree of distortion as well as the overall symmetry of the molecule was varied across members of the series. By magnetostructural correlations and ab initio calculations it has been determined that the deciding factor for SMM behavior is not the degree of distortion but the interactions between neighboring molecules in the solid state.