Chemical tunnel-splitting-engineering in a dysprosium-based molecular nanomagnet

• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-03706-x
• Publication Date: 2018-03-23T20:35:12Z
• Authors: Mikkel A. Sørensen; Ursula B. Hansen; Mauro Perfetti; Kasper S. Pedersen; Elena Bartolomé; Giovanna G. Simeoni; Hannu Mutka; Stéphane Rols; Minki Jeong; Ivica Zivkovic; Maria Retuerto; Ana Arauzo; Juan Bartolomé; Stergios Piligkos; Høgni Weihe; Linda H. Doerrer; Joris van Slageren; Henrik M. Rønnow; Kim Lefmann; Jesper Bendix
• Keywords: Dysprosium; Nanomagnet; Crystal (programming language)

Abstract Total control over the electronic spin relaxation in molecular nanomagnets is ultimate goal design of new molecules with evermore realizable applications spin-based devices. For single-ion lanthanide systems, strong spin–orbit coupling, potential are linked to energetic structure crystal field levels and quantum tunneling within ground state. Structural engineering timescale these events via appropriate fields represents a fundamental challenge for synthetic chemist, since tunnel splittings expected be suppressed by environments sufficiently high-order symmetry. Here, we report long missing study effect non-linear ( C 4 ) pseudo-linear D 4d change symmetry an otherwise chemically unaltered dysprosium complex. From purely experimental dynamics at milliKelvin temperatures, demonstrate ensuing threefold reduction splitting.