S J Blundell and F L Pratt 2004 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 16 R771 doi:10.1088/0953-8984/16/24/R03
S J Blundell1 and F L Pratt2
Show affiliationsHistorically most materials in magnetic applications are based on inorganic materials. Recently, however, organic and molecular materials have begun to show increasing promise. Purely organic ferromagnets, based upon nitronyl nitroxide radicals, show long range magnetic order at very low temperatures in the region of 1 K, while sulfur based radicals show weak ferromagnetism at temperatures up to 36 K. It is also possible to prepare molecule based magnets in which transition metal ions are used to provide the magnetic moment, but organic groups mediate the interactions. This strategy has produced magnetic materials with a large variety of structures, including chains, layered systems and three-dimensional networks, some of which show ordering at room temperature and some of which have very high coercivity. Even if long range magnetic order is not achieved, the spin crossover effect may be observed, which has important applications. Further magnetic materials may be obtained by constructing charge transfer salts, which can produce metallic molecular magnets. Another development is single-molecule magnets, formed by preparing small magnetic clusters. These materials can show macroscopic quantum tunnelling of the magnetization and may have uses as memory devices or in quantum computation applications.
75.30.Cr Saturation moments and magnetic susceptibilities
75.60.Ej Magnetization curves, hysteresis, Barkhausen and related effects
Issue 24 (23 June 2004)
Received 22 April 2004
Published 4 June 2004
S J Blundell and F L Pratt 2004 J. Phys.: Condens. Matter 16 R771
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