Modifying the properties of 4f single-ion magnets by peripheral ligand functionalisation

Kasper Steen Pedersen, Liviu Ungur, Marc Sigrist, Alexander Sundt, Magnus Schau-Magnussen, Veacheslav Vieru, Hannu Mutka, Stephane Rols, Høgni Weihe, Oliver Waldmann, Liviu F. Chibotaru, Jesper Bendix*, Jan Dreiser

*Corresponding author for this work
126 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

We study the ligand-field splittings and magnetic properties of three ErIII single-ion magnets which differ in the peripheral ligand sphere but exhibit similar first coordination spheres by inelastic neutron scattering (INS) and SQUID magnetometry. The INS spectra of the three compounds are profoundly different pointing at a strong response of the magnetic behavior to minor structural changes, as they are e.g. encountered when depositing molecules on surfaces. The observation of several magnetic excitations within the J = 15/2 ground multiplet together with single-crystal magnetic measurements allows for the extraction of the sign and magnitude of all symmetry-allowed Stevens parameters. The parameter values and the energy spectrum derived from INS are compared to the results of state-of-the-art ab initio CASSCF calculations. Temperature-dependent alternating current (ac) susceptibility measurements suggest that the magnetisation relaxation in the investigated temperature range of 1.9 K < T < 5 K is dominated by quantum tunnelling of magnetisation and two-phonon Raman processes. The possibility of observing electron paramagnetic resonance transitions between the ground-state doublet states, which can be suppressed in perfectly axial single-ion magnets, renders the studied systems interesting as representations of quantum bits.

Original languageEnglish
JournalChemical Science
Volume5
Issue number4
Pages (from-to)1650-1660
Number of pages11
ISSN2041-6520
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2014

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