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Molecular Nanomagnets at Surfaces: Novel Phenomena for Spin-based Technologies (MOLNANOMAS)
Start date: Jan 1, 2011, End date: Dec 31, 2015 PROJECT  FINISHED 

Molecular nanomagnets, also known as Single Molecule Magnets (SMMs), are a class of molecules that at low temperature exhibit magnetic hysteresis of pure molecular origin and not related to a cooperative effect. In the past fifteen years they have attracted great interest for their potentiality to act as magnetic memory units and for the many quantum effects in the dynamics of their magnetization. Recently our observation that the magnetic bistability is retained when a tetranuclear iron(III) molecular cluster is grafted to a metallic surface has renewed the interest in these materials, which appear the ideal candidates for fundamental investigations on the interplay between conducting electrons and magnetic degrees of freedom in the emerging field of molecular spintronics. In this project we plan to benefit from our leading position in the research on SMMs to explore novel phenomena originated by the combination of SMMs with conducting and magnetic substrates in hybrid structures. Our interdisciplinary approach starts from the design and synthesis of SMMs and includes their assembling on surface from solution or in high vacuum as well as the tuning of the interaction with conducting, and magnetic substrates through chemical tuning of SMMs. We will focus on the quantum dynamics of the magnetization that seems particularly affected by the interaction with a magnetic substrate opening perspectives for novel spintronic devices and for an unexplored strategy to increase the blocking temperature of SMMs. Additional aspects will be investigated, in particular the use of switchable magnetic molecules as well as the possibility to modify the interface with yet unexplored approaches, for instance exploiting the magnetic torque on molecules with large magnetic anisotropy.

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