Prof. Gopalan Rajaraman

Department of Chemistry,

Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai-400076.

Email: rajaraman[at]chem.iitb.ac.in

DOES Au(111) SURFACE ALTER THE MAGNETIC PROPERTIES OF A MOLECULES ADSORBED?

Molecule which retains their magnetisation in absence of magnetic field are known as SMMs and are characterized by large ground state (S) and their large negative magnetic anisotropy (D).¹ These SMMs have wide potential application towards development of highly dense information storage devices as well as Q-bits in quantum computing. The key to future success in this class of compounds are related to sign and strength of the magnetic coupling and the magnitude of anisotropy. Understanding the magnetic coupling this becomes very crucial and theoretical studies play pivotal role in this area. Despite extensive experimental reports, theoretical studies are scarce in this area. In the last four years, in our group we have studied apart from studying the magnetic coupling of numerous molecular magnets², recently started looking at how the magnetic properties of the molecule alters as it anchors on the Au(111) surface. Single Molecule Magnets (SMM) adsorbed on surfaces as magnetic building blocks represent a hot topic of research in the area of molecular magnetism. Indeed, the understanding the properties of molecules on surface is extremely challenging as atomistic structures are not readily available. In this regard, theoretical studies as reliable tool to reproduce and predict the structure and the magnetic ground state of a SMM in the bulk phase and adsorbed on a surface, should be considered very appealing. In this presentation, I will summarize our efforts towards understanding the structure of thiolated molecular magnets that are adsorbed on the Au(111) and how the surface alters the magnetic properties of the surface upon adsorption.⁵ Implications of our finding to the development of novel information storage devices will be highlighted.

 

References:

1. R. Sessoli, D. Gatteschi, A. Caneschi, M. A. Novak, Nature, 1993, 365, 141.

2. G. Rajaraman, F. Totti,; A. Bencini, A. Caneschi, R. Sessoli, D. Gatteschi, Dalton Trans. 2009, 3153; T. Rajeshkumar, G. Rajaraman, Chem. Commun. 2012, 48, 7856;

3. M. Mannini, F. Pineider, C. Danieli, F.Totti, L. Sorace, P. Sainctavit, M.-A. Arrio, E. Otero, L. Joly, J. C. Cezar, A. Cornia, R. Sessoli, Nature 2010, 468, 417.

4. Federico Totti Gopalan Rajaraman, Marcella Iannuzzi and Roberta Sessoli 
J. Phys. Chem. C., 2013, 117, 7186.

5. R. Nabi and G. Rajaraman, Manuscript submitted.