Magnetic materials articles from across Nature Portfolio

This study introduces a Eu(II) single molecule magnet that exhibits slow magnetic relaxation at low temperatures. These results highlight the importance of the lanthanide ion’s crystal field in unlocking the magnet-like properties of Eu(II).

A chemist-intuited atomic robotic probe is developed that enables autonomous site-selective manipulation of magnetic nanographenes with atomic precision and aids in reaction mechanism elucidation through the incorporation of learned knowledge and artificial intelligence, leading to the intelligent synthesis of these materials.

The design of open-shell nanographenes is commonly limited to systems featuring a single magnetic origin. Now a strategy that combines topological frustration and electron–electron interactions has been developed to generate a butterfly-shaped nanographene that hosts four highly entangled π-spins and exhibits both ferromagnetic and anti-ferromagnetic coupling.

Valence tautomerism in lanthanide-based materials is rare. Now a one-dimensional samarium–pyrazine polymer has been shown to exhibit a temperature-induced hysteretic Sm(III)-to-Sm(II) reversible switch. The transition temperature is modulated in a 150 K window by alloying with Yb(II), presenting a strategy for developing new materials with chemically tunable magnetic switchability.

Molecular electron spins are promising qubit candidates, however physical implementation of quantum gates is challenging. Little et al. explore the implementation of two-qubit entangling gates between nitroxide spin centres by pulsed electron paramagnetic resonance, building on NMR quantum computing protocols.

Artificial intelligence is used to automate the synthesis of single molecules using the tip of a scanning probe microscope, as well as to extract chemical information from these reactions.

Lorentz electron ptychography, a coherent diffractive imaging method, unveils magnetization singularities in a skyrmion lattice in FeGe and captures subtle internal structures near the skyrmion cores, boundaries, and dislocations.

Electron spin relaxation, important in quantum information science, can be slowed down at clock transitions — which are insensitive to magnetic noise. It has now been shown that such transitions can be tuned, to high frequency, in rare-earth coordination complexes through control of s- and d-orbital mixing.

By understanding the magnetic properties of purely organic thin films, opportunities are presented to employ new characteristics in myriad applications.

Solid-state hydrogen gating of a ferrimagnetic metal enables independent reversal of Néel and magnetization vectors by an electric field.

Permanent magnets constructed from metal ions and organic linkers using molecular design principles could bring transformative advances in areas such as energy conversion, transportation, and information storage. This comment highlights the recent discovery of a metal–organic magnet ordering at 242 °C, and discusses future research directions and possible applications involving such materials.