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Switching of a coupled spin pair in a single-molecule junction

Nature Nanotechnology volume 8, pages 575–579 (2013)Cite this article

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Abstract

Single-molecule spintronics investigates electron transport through magnetic molecules that have an internal spin degree of freedom1. To understand and control these individual molecules it is important to read their spin state2. For unpaired spins, the Kondo effect has been observed3,4,5,6,7,8 as a low-temperature anomaly at small voltages. Here, we show that a coupled spin pair in a single magnetic molecule can be detected9,10 and that a bias voltage can be used to switch between two states of the molecule. In particular, we use the mechanically controlled break-junction technique11 to measure electronic transport through a single-molecule junction containing two coupled spin centres that are confined on two Co2+ ions. Spin–orbit configuration interaction methods are used to calculate the combined spin system, where the ground state is found to be a pseudo-singlet and the first excitations behave as a pseudo-triplet. Experimentally, these states can be assigned to the absence and occurrence of a Kondo-like zero-bias anomaly in the low-temperature conductance data, respectively. By applying finite bias, we can repeatedly switch between the pseudo-singlet state and the pseudo-triplet state.

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Figure 1: Coupled spin pair in a break junction.
Figure 2: Molecular junctions of type I, with Kondo-like behaviour.
Figure 3: Magnetic-field dependence of the ZBA for two different samples.
Figure 4: I–V characteristics recorded at low temperatures and the corresponding differential conductance obtained by numerical differentiation.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge funding from the DFG under the framework of the SPP 1243 ‘Quantum transport on the molecular scale’ and the Transregio SFB TRR88 ‘3MET’. The authors thank R. Herchel for help in interpreting the magnetic bulk data, and H. Görls and G. Vaughan for X-ray structural analysis of ligand L. M. Fischer is thanked for measuring the elemental analysis. The authors also appreciate discussions with P. Müller.

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Author notes

  1. Rajadurai Chandrasekar

    Present address: Present address: School of Chemistry, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad-500 046, India,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lehrstuhl für Angewandte Physik, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Staudtstrasse 7, Erlangen, D-91058, Germany

    Stefan Wagner, Ferdinand Kisslinger, Stefan Ballmann, Daniel Secker & Heiko B. Weber

  2. Institut für Nanotechnologie, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT), PF 3640, Karlsruhe, D-76021, Germany

    Frank Schramm, Rajadurai Chandrasekar, Tilmann Bodenstein, Olaf Fuhr, Karin Fink & Mario Ruben

  3. IPCMS, CNRS-Université de Strasbourg, 34 rue de Loess, Strasbourg, F-67034, France

    Mario Ruben

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Contributions

M.R. and H.B.W. conceived and designed the experiments. S.W., F.K. and S.B. performed the MCBJ experiments. Synthesis and full characterization of the chemicals were performed by R.C. (ligand L) and F.S. (complex 1). Quantum-chemical calculations were performed and analysed by T.B. and K.F. O.F. determined the single-crystal X-ray data of complex 1. S.W., F.K., S.B., F.S., T.B., K.F., M.R. and H.B.W. co-wrote the paper. All authors discussed and commented on the manuscript. Correspondence should be addressed to F.S. (synthesis), K.F. (theory) and H.B.W. (experiment).

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Frank Schramm, Karin Fink or Heiko B. Weber.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Wagner, S., Kisslinger, F., Ballmann, S. et al. Switching of a coupled spin pair in a single-molecule junction. Nature Nanotech 8, 575–579 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2013.133

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