Issue 11, 2013

Spin-polarized transport through single-molecule magnet Mn6 complexes

Abstract

The coherent transport properties of a device, constructed by sandwiching a Mn6 single-molecule magnet between two gold surfaces, are studied theoretically by using the non-equilibrium Green's function approach combined with density functional theory. Two spin states of such Mn6 complexes are explored, namely the ferromagnetically coupled configuration of the six MnIII cations, leading to the S = 12 ground state, and the low S = 4 spin state. For voltages up to 1 volt the S = 12 ground state shows a current one order of magnitude larger than that of the S = 4 state. Furthermore this is almost completely spin-polarized, since the Mn6 frontier molecular orbitals for S = 12 belong to the same spin manifold. As such the high-anisotropy Mn6 molecule appears as a promising candidate for implementing, at the single molecular level, both spin-switches and low-temperature spin-valves.

Graphical abstract: Spin-polarized transport through single-molecule magnet Mn6 complexes

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
04 Jan 2013
Accepted
22 Mar 2013
First published
25 Mar 2013

Nanoscale, 2013,5, 4751-4757

Spin-polarized transport through single-molecule magnet Mn6 complexes

E. Cremades, C. D. Pemmaraju, S. Sanvito and E. Ruiz, Nanoscale, 2013, 5, 4751 DOI: 10.1039/C3NR00054K

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements