Mechanical Control of Spin States in Spin-1 Molecules and the Underscreened Kondo Effect

The ability to make electrical contact to single molecules creates opportunities to examine fundamental processes governing electron flow on the smallest possible length scales. We report experiments in which we controllably stretched individual cobalt complexes having spin S = 1, while simultaneous...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 2010-06, Vol.328 (5984), p.1370-1373
Main Authors: Parks, J.J, Champagne, A.R, Costi, T.A, Shum, W.W, Pasupathy, A.N, Neuscamman, E, Flores-Torres, S, Cornaglia, P.S, Aligia, A.A, Balseiro, C.A, Chan, G.K.-L, Abruña, H.D, Ralph, D.C
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anisotropy
Condensed matter: electronic structure, electrical, magnetic, and optical properties
Contact
Control systems
Correlation
Devices
Electric contacts
Electrodes
Electrons
Exact sciences and technology
Ground state
Kondo effect
Ligands
Magnetic fields
Magnetic properties and materials
Magnetically ordered materials: other intrinsic properties
Molecules
Narrative devices
Particle physics
Physics
Scattering
Symmetry
Temperature dependence
Valence fluctuation, kondo lattice, and heavy-fermion phenomena
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Summary:The ability to make electrical contact to single molecules creates opportunities to examine fundamental processes governing electron flow on the smallest possible length scales. We report experiments in which we controllably stretched individual cobalt complexes having spin S = 1, while simultaneously measuring current flow through the molecule. The molecule's spin states and magnetic anisotropy were manipulated in the absence of a magnetic field by modification of the molecular symmetry. This control enabled quantitative studies of the underscreened Kondo effect, in which conduction electrons only partially compensate the molecular spin. Our findings demonstrate a mechanism of spin control in single-molecule devices and establish that they can serve as model systems for making precision tests of correlated-electron theories.
ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.1186874