Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Materials science

Magnetic blue

Nature volume 450, pages 177–178 (2007)Cite this article

A commonly used blue dye is more than just a pretty colour. This material and its relatives are semiconductors, and their magnetic properties can be controlled by engineering their crystal structure.

Organic compounds are rarely magnetic, but metal phthalocyanine (MPc) materials are notable exceptions to this rule. Reporting in Advanced Materials, Heutz et al.1 now show that the magnetism of MPcs can be controlled. By changing the crystal structure of an MPc film, the authors switched the material from being in a magnetically ordered state to a non-magnetic one. This approach might provide a method for customizing the magnetism of molecular materials.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Get just this article for as long as you need it

$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Structure of metal phthalocyanines.

References

  1. Heutz, S. et al. Adv. Mater. doi:10.1002/adma.200701458 (2007). |Article|

  2. Craciun, M. F. et al. Adv. Mater. 18, 320–324 (2006).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Craciun, M. F., Rogge, S. & Morpurgo, A. F. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 127, 12210–12211 (2005).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Taguchi, Y. et al. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 128, 3313–3323 (2006).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Tosatti, E., Fabrizio, M., Tóbik, J. & Santoro, G. E. Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 117002 (2004).

    Article  ADS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jeroen van den Brink is at the Instituut-Lorentz for Theoretical Physics, Leiden University, Postbus 9506, 2300 RA Leiden, the Netherlands. brink@ilorentz.org ,

    Jeroen van den Brink

  2. Alberto F. Morpurgo is at the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, Delft University of Technology, Postbus 5, 2600 AA Delft, the Netherlands. a.morpurgo@tnw.tudelft.nl ,

    Alberto F. Morpurgo

Authors
  1. Jeroen van den Brink
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Alberto F. Morpurgo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

van den Brink, J., Morpurgo, A. Magnetic blue. Nature 450, 177–178 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/450177a

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/450177a

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing