Terpyridine ligands with ter- and quater-phenyl substituents at the 4' position provide bis(ligand)Co(II) complexes showing very different magnetic properties to those of their analogues with long-chain aliphatic substituents, with no evidence of "re-entrant" behavior involving multiple high- and low-spin species. Structure determinations of [Co(tptpy)2](BF4)2·CH3OH and [Co(qptpy)2](BPh4)2·3.5dmf·2H2O (dmf = N,N-dimethylformamide) show the metal ion centres in both to be relatively distant and that the "terpyridine embrace" observed to be partially retained in their analogues is completely lost. Consideration of available structural and magnetic data for these and other Co(II) complexes of functionalised terpyridines and terpyridine itself provides evidence that spin crossover behaviour may be regulated by face-to-face contacts of the pyridyl units of the head groups.

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Use of Hirshfeld surfaces calculated from crystal structure determinations on various transition metal ion complexes of three terpyridine ligands carrying trimethoxyphenyl substituents has enabled an assessment of the contribution made by the ligand components to the interactions determining the lattice structures, interactions expected also to be present in metallomesogens derived from similar ligands. The form of the link joining the trimethoxyphenyl substituent to the 4′ position of 2,2′;6′,2″-terpyridine is of some importance. In the case of the Co(II) complexes of two of the ligands, their spin-crossover characteristics can be rationalised in terms of the different interactions seen in their lattices.

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Two new polyamine ligands, L1 and L2, incorporating pyridyl and aliphatic amine donor sites have been prepared and their reaction with copper(ii) yields the mono- and binuclear complexes [Cu(L1)](ClO4)2 (1) and [Cl2Cu(L2)CuCl(H2O)]ClO4 (2), respectively. The X-ray structure of 1 confirms that the five nitrogen donors of L1 are bound to the central copper ion to give a distorted square pyramidal coordination sphere. In 2, L2 acts as a bridging ligand with its N3-donor coordination domains separated by a m-xylylene spacer group. An unusual feature of this latter complex is that symmetrical L2 gives rise to non-equivalent coordination behaviour at the individual copper sites; while both sites display five-coordination with distorted square pyramidal arrangements, they differ in having N3Cl2- and N3ClO-donor atom sets, respectively. The electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectra of both complexes are discussed. Variable temperature magnetic susceptibility data confirmed the absence of magnetic interactions in 1 while a weak antiferromagnetic interaction between copper(ii) centres occurs in 2.