Chemical Responsive Single Crystal Organic Magnet

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a gas-responsive single-molecule magnet whose magnetic properties can be reversibly and significantly altered by environmental gases, maintaining structural integrity and opening new avenues for smart magnetic materials.

Contribution

It introduces a high-performance, gas-responsive SMM with reversible magnetic state changes and preserved crystal structure, advancing stimuli-responsive magnetic material design.

Findings

Magnetic properties of the SMM can be significantly changed by gas environment.

Magnetic states can be reversibly transformed or coexist in the SMM.

The monocrystalline structure remains largely unchanged during transformations.

Abstract

Materials that change their magnetic properties in response to the external stimuli have long been of interest for their potential applicability in magnetic storage device, spintronics and smart magnetic materials. Organic materials are suitable candidates for such materials due to their chemical diversity, flexibility and designablity. However, most methods used for changing magnetism are inefficient or destructive to the magnetic material. Hence there is a need for innovation in this field. Here we report high-performance magnetic control of a gas-responsive single-molecule magnet (SMM). The results exhibit that the magnetic properties of the SMM can be significantly changed according to the gas environment it is in and some of the magnetic states can be reversibly transformed or coexistent in the SMM through artificial control. More importantly, the monocrystalline structure of the SMM remains unchanged during the transformation process except for slight change of the lattice constant. Thus, this work opens up new insights into the stimuli-responsive magnetic materials which have great prospects for application in artificial design magnetic network and also highlight their potential as smart materials.