Probing Magnetic Interactions in Metal-Organic Frameworks and Coordination Poylmers Microscopically

Materials with magnetic interactions between their metal centres play both a tremedous role in modern technologies and can exhibit unique physical phenomena. In recent years magnetic metal-organic frameworks and coordination polymers have attracted significant attention because their unique structural flexibility enable them to exhibit multifunctional magnetic properties or unique magnetic states not found in conventional magnetic materials, such as metal oxides. The techniques that enable the magnetic interactions in these materials to be probed at the atomic scale, as long established as key for devloping other magnetic materials, are not well established for studying metal-organic frameworks and coordination polymers. This review focuses on studies where metal-organic frameworks and coordination polymers have been examined by such microscopic probes, with a particular focus on neutron scattering and density-functional theory, the most-well established experimental and computational techniques for understanding magnetic materials in detail. This builds on a brief introduction to these techniques to describe how such probes have been applied to a variety of magnetic materials starting with select historical examples before discussing multifunctional, low dimensional and frustrated magnets. This review highlight the information that can be obtained from such micrscopic studies, including the strengths and limitations of these techniques. The article then concludes with a brief perspective on the future of this area.