Michael Faraday is a name synonymous with the physical sciences. One of his many observations relates to the rotation of polarized light as it travels through a medium with a magnetic field parallel to the transmitted light. This rotation is described as a Faraday effect, Faraday rotation, and/or magneto-optical Faraday effect, and is important in a range of modern-day applications, such as optical switches, sensors, and current transformers as well as semiconductors.

To synthesize their chiral and magnetic compounds, Aibibula and colleagues stirred together various reagents and heated the resulting solution to 90 °C for up to three hours. After this, the mixtures were filtered and left at room temperature to evaporate and dry until pink crystals were formed, which took about ten days. The results of these steps were a range of complex magnetic and chiral materials — depending on the specific starting materials — such as [Co2Ln(R/S-mpm)6(Ac)(H2O)]·(ClO4)2·5H2O and [Co3Ln2(R/S-mpm)6(HTEOA)(μ3-OH)-(Ac)3(H2O)2]·(ClO4)3·6H2O (abbreviated to Co2Ln and Co3Ln2, Ln refers to lanthanides of Dy and Er) where HTEOA is triethanolamine and mpm are commonly used enantiopure chiral ligands. Their choice of metal ions (3d–4f metal centres, such as Co with Dy or Er) stems from strong magnetic coupling interactions within such metal clusters leading to enhanced Faraday effects. Such enhancements to the Faraday rotation could mean that polarized light is rotated even more when passing through such complexes.