One Pot Grafting of Tetrairon(III) Single Molecule Magnets on Silicon

Herein we report on the Si grafting of two Fe4 derivatives, [Fe4(Li)2(tmhd)6], in which tmhd is 2,2,6,6-tetramethylheptane-3,5-dionate and H3Li = R–C(CH2OH)3 is a tripodal ligand with R = CH2=CH–CH2–O–CH2 (H3L1) and CH2=CH–(CH2)9–O–CH2 (H3L2). These complexes were specifically designed to be directlyanchored on the H-terminated silicon surface via the hydrosilylation reaction. The complexes were grafted by a one pot route based on the photoinduced hydrosilylation followed by a ligand exchange step in the same reaction solution. The resulting decorated surfaces were characterized using X-ray photoelectronspectroscopy (XPS), attenuated total reflection infrared spectroscopy (ATR-IR) and atomic force microscopy (AFM).