Resumen: We report the existence of a sizeable quantum tunnelling splitting between the two lowest electronic spin levels of mononuclear Ni complexes. The level anti-crossing, or magnetic “clock transition”, associated with this gap has been directly monitored by heat capacity experiments. The comparison of these results with those obtained for a Co derivative, for which tunnelling is forbidden by symmetry, shows that the clock transition leads to an effective suppression of intermolecular spin-spin interactions. In addition, we show that the quantum tunnelling splitting admits a chemical tuningviathe modification of the ligand shell that determines the crystal field and the magnetic anisotropy. These properties are crucial to realize model spin qubits that combine the necessary resilience against decoherence, a proper interfacing with other qubits and with the control circuitry and the ability to initialize them by cooling. Idioma: Inglés DOI: 10.1039/d0sc05856d Año: 2021 Publicado en: CHEMICAL SCIENCE 12, 14 (2021), 5123-5133 ISSN: 2041-6520 Factor impacto JCR: 9.969 (2021) Categ. JCR: CHEMISTRY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY rank: 25 / 179 = 0.14 (2021) - Q1 - T1 Factor impacto SCIMAGO: 2.878 - Chemistry (miscellaneous) (Q1)