Single-Molecule Magnets: From Mn12-ac to dysprosium metallocenes, a travel in time

Abstract

The discovery of the first Single-Molecule Magnet, Mn12-ac, in 1993 changed the perspective of how information can be stored. The current bit, occupying few hundreds of nanometers in present devices, would be minimized to tens of angstroms at molecular level. However, until a couple of years these materials could only operate at temperatures near to the absolute zero. From 1993 to date, the field of Single-Molecule Magnets (SMMs) has continuously evolved thanks to the close collaboration of chemists and physicists obtaining materials already operating above the liquid nitrogen temperature. This long journey, however, has involved the study of many different routes towards high performance SMMs, being each of them essential in order to deeply understand the quantum dynamics behind these molecules. An era of high spin 3d metal clusters was the beginning of everything, but it went through highly anisotropic low coordinate 3d compounds, lanthanide based magnets, radical bridged compounds and 3d-4f mixed systems, among others, to end up in the current state of the art dysprosium metallocenes. Furthermore, after the magnetic studies in bulk, SMM based hybrid systems are emerging for future application devices, which also involve very interesting multifunctionalities. All in all, this work aims to explain how these materials work and show the trajectory and some of the major advances that have been made during recent years in this field.