![]() ![]() It’s impossible because magnets are dipolar. Moreover, it’s almost impossible to join several rows of these magnets together to form a flat surface. The magnets always arrange themselves in a column sticking out vertically from the magnetic board. If you’ve ever tried to put several really strong, small cube magnets right next to each other on a magnetic board, you’ll know that you just can’t do it. Chilton’s team performed computations to help better understand the electronic and magnetic properties of the new molecules.Īlthough more research and development will be required to bring these molecules to commercial technologies, this discovery creates new opportunities to reach that goal.An external magnetic field controls new cube-shaped magnetic building blocks that can form 2D shapes. Chilton, a professor at the University of Manchester in England. “This is also the first time that a bismuth radical was isolated with any lanthanide or transition metal from the periodic table.”Īlso joining the MSU researchers on this project were chemists led by Nicholas F. “The new molecules constitute the first single-molecule magnets containing bismuth radicals,” Demir said. “And placing a bismuth radical in between lanthanides would result in effective magnetic communication between the species.”Ĭapitalizing on its experience, Demir’s team realized this synergy and overcame the hurdles presented by the individual pieces with careful design and judicious planning, she said. “An elegant way to stabilize a radical anion is to pair it with lanthanide ions,” Demir said. Still, Demir knew that these cantankerous components could actually work together. The new single-molecule magnets created at Michigan State University work like bar magnets, such as the one shown here, but are much, much smaller. The team’s earlier work had hinted that combining the ingredients could be fertile ground for making single-molecule magnets, but progress was hard won because making the molecules presented obstacles in virtually every phase: synthesis, isolation and purification. That means it’s a version of bismuth that carries a negative charge and is typically very reactive and short-lived. It’s the “radical anion” part that makes it particularly challenging. The other is what’s known as a bismuth radical anion. The first key component are lanthanides, which are large, unwieldy elements that live at the bottom of the periodic table. But these choices still had their challenges. So the team picked two building blocks that could couple spins in an unprecedented way. In building their new single-molecule magnets, Demir and her team wanted to combine different atomic building blocks whose electron spins could interact or couple in a way that would yield molecules with tantalizing magnetic properties. , bridges two lanthanide ions shown in green. ![]() In new single-molecule magnets produced by Michigan State University chemists, a bismuth radical anion, shown in pink and labeled Bi 2 3− While charge gives rise to electricity, spin is more connected to other things, including magnetism. It’s a fundamental physical property of tiny particles that researchers can take advantage of for certain applications, similar in that regard to electric charge. The electrons zipping around the exterior of atoms have something called spin. On paper, the approach Demir and her team took makes a ton of sense. Demir and her team have a history of demonstrating the ingenuity and persistence needed to deliver those.Ī lanthanide and a bismuth radical walk into a bar magnet Getting to those applications, though, still requires fundamental innovations. Single-molecule magnets also could open new doors in emerging technologies, such as quantum computers. Since then, researchers have been developing new types with the goal of pushing established magnetic technology, including hard drives, to a whole new level. These single molecules work like ultratiny bar magnets and were first synthesized in the 1990s. ![]() “But this challenge has been met by Spartan chemists for the first time.” “Realizing these molecules in a laboratory setting is extremely difficult,” said Demir, an assistant professor in the College of Natural Science. Reporting in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, researchers led by Selvan Demir have brought together famously challenging building blocks to push single-molecule magnets a step closer to their promising applications. ![]() That’s especially evident in recent research from a team of Michigan State University chemists who have unveiled a new class of magnetic molecules. Michigan State University Assistant Professor Selvan Demir ![]()
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