Mössbauer effect study of the electronic ground state of iron(II) in [57FexM1−x(bipy)3](ClO4)2 (M = Mn, Ni, Zn) and [57FexM1−x(phen)3](ClO4)2 (M = Ni, Zn) at very lowiron concentrations

Earlier work in our laboratory on the effect of metal dilution on the 5T2(Oh ⇌ 1A1(Oh) equilibrium in polycrystalline spin crossover systems of iron(II) has shown that the relative stability of the high spin state, 5T2(Oh), at a given temperature, increases markedly with decreasing iron concentration. These results have initiated the present work. Using 57Fe Mossbauer spectroscopy, we have investigated the electronic ground state of iron(II) in the highly diluted solid solutions [FexM1−xL3] with L = bipy, M = Mn, Ni, Zn, x ≲ 0.005 and L = phen, M = Ni, Zn, x ≲ 0.005. Although the critical field potential (Vc) of the pure iron complexes, which are known to be low spin, is reported to be not …