Surface Physics
Osterwalder Group
Greber Group

Spin Shuttles

The project "Spin shuttles" investigates molecules with unpaired electron spins in view of their performance in molecular spintronics.

Spin shuttle is a term coined for endofullerene molecules that encage and protect an atom or molecule with an open electron shell. Such molecules are candidates for single molecule magnets and have a great potential as building blocks in molecular spintronics. A single molecule magnet is a single molecule that retains its magnetization direction for a long period of time, i.e. displays hysteresis.
The first single molecule magnet spin shuttle was Dy2ScN@C80.

Our experiments cover magnetic characterization of the electronic ground state with magnetometry and x-ray circular dichroism (XMCD). The structure of the molecules on surfaces is investigated by x-ray photoelectron diffraction (XPD), also with resonant excitation (RXPD) and tunneling microscopy (STM) and spectroscopy (STS).

In collaboration with Dr. Matthias Muntwiler and Dr. Cinthia Piamontheze, PSI Villigen and Dr. Alexey Popov, IFW Dresden.

Team

• Prof. Thomas Greber
• Dr. Aram Kostanyan

Latest publications

• Electrostatic Interaction across a Single-Layer Carbon Shell
  R. Stania, A. P. Seitsonen, D. Kunhardt, B. Büchner, A. A. Popov, M. Muntwiler, and T. Greber
  J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 9, 3586 (2018)
  → DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.8b01326


• Switching Molecular Conformation with the Torque on a Single Magnetic Moment
  A. Kostanyan, R. Westerström, Y. Zhang, D. Kunhardt, R. Stania, B. Büchner, A. A. Popov, and T. Greber
  Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 237202 (2017)
  → DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.237202


• Single molecule magnet with an unpaired electron trapped between two lanthanide ions inside a fullerene
  F. Liu, D. S. Krylov, L. Spree, S. M. Avdoshenko, N. A. Samoylova, M. Rosenkranz, A. Kostanyan, T. Greber, A. U. B. Wolter, B. Büchner & A. A. Popov
  Nature Comm. 8, 16098 (2017)
  → DOI: 10.1038/ncomms16098


• Mononuclear Clusterfullerene Single-Molecule Magnet Containing Strained Fused-Pentagons Stabilized by a Nearly Linear Metal Cyanide Cluster
  F. Liu, S. Wang, C-.L Gao, Q. Deng, X. Zhu, A. Kostanyan, R. Westerström, F. Jin, S-Y. Xie, A. A. Popov, T. Greber and S. Yang
  Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 56, 1830 (2017)
  → DOI: 10.1002/anie.201611345


• Triangular Monometallic Cyanide Cluster Entrapped in Carbon Cage with Geometry-Dependent Molecular Magnetism
  F. Liu, C-L. Gao, Q. Deng, X. Zhu, A. Kostanyan, R. Westerström, S. Wang, Y-Z. Tan, J. Tao, S-Y. Xie, A. Popov, T. Greber, and SF. Yang
  J. Am. Chem. Soc. 138, 14764 (2016)
  → DOI: 10.1021/jacs.6b09329


• ...[→ more publications]

Funding