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Giant magnetoresistance through a single molecule

Nature Nanotechnology volume 6, pages 185–189 (2011)Cite this article

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Abstract

Magnetoresistance is a change in the resistance of a material system caused by an applied magnetic field. Giant magnetoresistance occurs in structures containing ferromagnetic contacts separated by a metallic non-magnetic spacer, and is now the basis of read heads for hard drives and for new forms of random access memory. Using an insulator (for example, a molecular thin film) rather than a metal as the spacer gives rise to tunnelling magnetoresistance, which typically produces a larger change in resistance for a given magnetic field strength, but also yields higher resistances, which are a disadvantage for real device operation. Here, we demonstrate giant magnetoresistance across a single, non-magnetic hydrogen phthalocyanine molecule contacted by the ferromagnetic tip of a scanning tunnelling microscope. We measure the magnetoresistance to be 60% and the conductance to be 0.26G0, where G0 is the quantum of conductance. Theoretical analysis identifies spin-dependent hybridization of molecular and electrode orbitals as the cause of the large magnetoresistance.

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Figure 1: H2Pc molecules adsorbed on cobalt islands with different out-of-plane magnetic orientations.
Figure 2: Current–distance traces and magnetoresistance measured across single H2Pc molecules.
Figure 3: Ab initio simulations of current–distance traces and the magnetoresistance effect across a H2Pc molecule.
Figure 4: Molecular orbitals and transmission curves reveal the spin-selective LUMO broadening and the impact on GMR across the H2Pc molecule.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank O. Hampe, J. Kortus, K. Fink, S. Boukari, Xi Chen, M. Alouani, R. Mattana, J. van Ruitenbeek and P. Seneor for useful communications. The authors also acknowledge support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (WU 349/3-1 and SPP1243), the Center for Functional Nanostructures, the French–German University, the Alexander von Humboldt foundation, and the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR-06-NANO-033-01) as well as from the Yamada Science Foundation and the Asahi Glass Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Physikalisches Institut, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, 76128, Germany

    Stefan Schmaus, Yasmine Nahas, Toyo K. Yamada, Annika Bork & Wulf Wulfhekel

  2. DFG-Center for Functional Nanostructures, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, 76128, Germany

    Stefan Schmaus, Alexei Bagrets, Yasmine Nahas & Wulf Wulfhekel

  3. Institute of Nanotechnology, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, 76128, Germany

    Alexei Bagrets & Ferdinand Evers

  4. Graduate School of Advanced Integration Science, Chiba University, Chiba, 263-8522, Japan

    Toyo K. Yamada

  5. Institut de Physique et Chimie des Matériaux de Strasbourg, UMR 7504 UdS-CNRS, Strasbourg Cedex 2, 67034, France

    Martin Bowen & Eric Beaurepaire

  6. Institut Für Theorie der Kondensierten Materie, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, D-76128, Germany

    Ferdinand Evers

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Contributions

S.S. and W.W. conceived and designed the experiments. S.S., Y.N., T.K.Y. and An.B. performed the experiments. S.S., Y.N. and An.B. analysed the data. Al.B. and F.E. designed and performed the calculations. M.B. and E.B. provided purified molecules. S.S., Al.B., T.K.Y., F.E., M.B., E.B. and W.W. co-wrote the paper. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Wulf Wulfhekel.

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Schmaus, S., Bagrets, A., Nahas, Y. et al. Giant magnetoresistance through a single molecule. Nature Nanotech 6, 185–189 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2011.11

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