Single-molecule magnets (SMMs) with one transition-metal ion often rely on unusual geometry as a source of magnetically anisotropic ground state. Here we report a cobalt(II) cage complex with a trigonal prism geometry showing single ion magnet behavior with very high Orbach relaxation barrier of 152 cm^–1. This, to our knowledge, is the largest reported relaxation barrier for a cobalt-based mononuclear SMM. The trigonal prismatic coordination provided by the macrocyclic ligand gives intrinsically more stable molecular species than previously reported SMMs, thus making this type of cage complexes more amendable to possible functionalization that will boost their magnetic anisotropy even further.

Magneto-chiral dichroism is a non-reciprocal—that is, directional—effect observed in magnetized chiral systems, featuring an unbalanced absorption of unpolarized light depending on the direction of the magnetization. Despite the fundamental interest in a phenomenon breaking both parity and time-reversal symmetries, magneto-chiral dichroism is one of the least investigated aspects of light–matter interaction most likely because of the weakness of the effect in most reported experiments. Here we have exploited the element selectivity of hard X-ray radiation to investigate the magneto-chiral properties of enantiopure crystals of two isostructural molecular helicoidal chains comprising either cobalt(II) or manganese(II) ions. A strong magneto-chiral dichroism, with Kuhn asymmetry of the order of a few per cent, has been observed in the cobalt chains system, whereas it is practically absent for the manganese derivative. The spectral features of the X-ray magneto-chiral dichroism signal differ significantly from the natural and magnetic dichroic contributions and have been rationalized here using the multipolar expansion of matter–radiation interaction.