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Concept
Single-molecule magnet
Summary
A single-molecule magnet (SMM) is a metal-organic compound that has superparamagnetic behavior below a certain blocking temperature at the molecular scale. In this temperature range, a SMM exhibits magnetic hysteresis of purely molecular origin. In contrast to conventional bulk magnets and molecule-based magnets, collective long-range magnetic ordering of magnetic moments is not necessary.
Although the term "single-molecule magnet" was first employed in 1996, the first single-molecule magnet, [Mn12O12(OAc)16(H2O)4] (nicknamed "Mn12") was reported in 1991. This manganese oxide compound features a central Mn(IV)4O4 cube surrounded by a ring of 8 Mn(III) units connected through bridging oxo ligands, and displays slow magnetic relaxation behavior up to temperatures of ca. 4 K.
Efforts in this field primarily focus on raising the operating temperatures of single-molecule magnets to liquid nitrogen temperature or room temperature in order to enable applications in magnetic memory. Along with raising the blocking temperature, efforts are being made to develop SMMs with high energy barriers to prevent fast spin reorientation. Recent acceleration in this field of research has resulted in significant enhancements of single-molecule magnet operating temperatures to above 70 K.
Because of single-molecule magnets' magnetic anisotropy, the magnetic moment has usually only two stable orientations antiparallel to each other, separated by an energy barrier. The stable orientations define the molecule's so called “easy axis”. At finite temperature, there is a finite probability for the magnetization to flip and reverse its direction. Identical to a superparamagnet, the mean time between two flips is called the Néel relaxation time and is given by the following Néel–Arrhenius equation:
where:
τ is the magnetic relaxation time, or the average amount of time that it takes for the molecule's magnetization to randomly flip as a result of thermal fluctuations
τ0 is a length of time, characteristic of the material, called the attempt time or attempt period (its reciprocal is called the attempt frequency); its typical value is between 10−9 and 10−10 second
Ueff is the energy barrier associated with the magnetization moving from its initial easy axis direction, through a “hard plane”, to the other easy axis direction.
Official source
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