Letter abstract
Nature Materials 8, 189 - 193 (2009)
Published online: 1 February 2009 | doi:10.1038/nmat2376
Subject Categories: Molecular electronics | Magnetic materials | Nanoscale materials
Supramolecular control of the magnetic anisotropy in two-dimensional high-spin Fe arrays at a metal interface
Pietro Gambardella1,2,3, Sebastian Stepanow1,4, Alexandre Dmitriev4,5, Jan Honolka4, Frank M. F. de Groot6, Magalí Lingenfelder4, Subhra Sen Gupta7, D. D. Sarma7, Peter Bencok8, Stefan Stanescu8, Sylvain Clair3, Stéphane Pons3, Nian Lin4, Ari P. Seitsonen9, Harald Brune3, Johannes V. Barth10 & Klaus Kern3,4
Magnetic atoms at surfaces are a rich model system for solid-state magnetic bits exhibiting either classical1, 2 or quantum3, 4 behaviour. Individual atoms, however, are difficult to arrange in regular patterns1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Moreover, their magnetic properties are dominated by interaction with the substrate, which, as in the case of Kondo systems, often leads to a decrease or quench of their local magnetic moment6, 7. Here, we show that the supramolecular assembly of Fe and 1,4-benzenedicarboxylic acid molecules on a Cu surface results in ordered arrays of high-spin mononuclear Fe centres on a 1.5 nm square grid. Lateral coordination with the molecular ligands yields unsaturated yet stable coordination bonds, which enable chemical modification of the electronic and magnetic properties of the Fe atoms independently from the substrate. The easy magnetization direction of the Fe centres can be switched by oxygen adsorption, thus opening a way to control the magnetic anisotropy in supramolecular layers akin to that used in metallic thin films8, 9, 10, 11.
- Centre d'Investigacions en Nanociència i Nanotecnologia (ICN-CSIC), UAB Campus, E-08193 Barcelona, Spain
- Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats (ICREA), E-08010 Barcelona, Spain
- Institut de Physique des Nanostructures, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
- Max-Planck-Institut für Festkörperforschung, D-70569 Stuttgart, Germany
- Department of Applied Physics, Chalmers University of Technology, 41296 Göteborg, Sweden
- Department of Chemistry, Utrecht University, 3584 CA Utrecht, The Netherlands
- Solid State and Structural Chemistry Unit, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560 012, India
- European Synchrotron Radiation Facility, BP 200, F-38043 Grenoble, France
- Institut de Minéralogie et de Physique des Milieux Condensé, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, F-75252 Paris, France
- Physik-Department E20, Technische Universität München, D-85748 Garching, Germany
Correspondence to: Pietro Gambardella1,2,3 e-mail: pietro.gambardella@icrea.es
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