Event

Research 

Single-molecule magnets (SMMs) are molecules that behave like nanoscopic bar magnets. They are interesting due to various potential applications in high-density information storage, molecular spintronics, and magnetic refrigeration. The challenge in realizing these applications lies in designing molecular magnets that have high operating temperatures.

The high magnetic anisotropic nature of lanthanide ions renders them particularly well-suited for the design of SMMs. This property arises from unquenched orbital angular momentum and strong spin-orbit coupling. To suppress quantum tunneling relaxation processes that lead to a shortcut of the maximum spin-relaxation barrier and thus, a weaker magnet, strong exchange coupling between the spins is required. This can be accomplished by using radical ligands with diffuse spin orbitals to penetrate the core electron density of the deeply buried 4f orbitals. We synthesize new radical ligands and investigate the spin density distributions via EPR and computational methods. Subsequently, we explore their utility for the design of radical-containing lanthanide SMMs...

Host Prof. Mindiola