Influence of intermolecular interactions on magnetic observables

TL;DR

This paper explores how intermolecular interactions in magnetic materials affect observable properties like magnetization and heat capacity, challenging the common assumption of negligible interactions in molecular magnetism.

Contribution

It provides a systematic analysis of the impact of intermolecular interactions on magnetic observables across different spatial dimensions.

Findings

Intermolecular interactions cause smearing of magnetization steps.

Magnetic susceptibility is significantly affected by interactions.

Specific heat shows notable deviations due to intermolecular couplings.

Abstract

Very often it is an implied paradigm of molecular magnetism that magnetic molecules in a crystal interact so weakly that measurements of dc magnetic observables reflect ensemble properties of single molecules. But the number of cases where the assumption of virtually non-interacting molecules does not hold grows steadily. A deviation from the non-interacting case can especially clearly be seen in clusters with antiferromagnetic couplings, where steps of the low-temperature magnetization curve are smeared out with increasing intermolecular interaction. In this investigation we demonstrate with examples in one-, two, and three space dimensions how intermolecular interactions influence typical magnetic observables such as magnetization, susceptibility and specific heat.