Materials science: ‘Molecular trick’
magnetizes manganese and copper (N&V)
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Nature
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Materials science
Embargo
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London: Wednesday 05 August 2015 18:00 (BST)
New York: Wednesday 05 August 2015 13:00 (EDT)
Tokyo: Thursday 06 August 2015 02:00 (JST)
Sydney: Thursday 06 August 2015 03:00 (AEST)
A technique that can make non-magnetic metals, such as manganese and copper, magnetic at
room temperature is reported in Nature this week. The research could help to broaden the
range of materials (and their properties) that can be used for magnetic and spintronic devices.
Pure ferromagnetism in elements is rare and only three elements are magnetic at room
temperature: iron, cobalt and nickel. A metal’s magnetism is determined not just by the
presence of unpaired electrons, but also by the interactions between these electrons. Oscar
Cespedes and colleagues show that thin films of copper and manganese can be made
magnetic by harnessing the electron transfer that takes place at the interface between the
metal and a layer of organic molecules — in this case, the spheres of 60 carbon atoms known
as buckyballs, which were selected as model molecules owing to their structural simplicity
and robustness. This strategy enables the metal to overcome the Stoner criterion, a principle
that explains why iron is magnetic but manganese is not, for example, even though both
elements have similar electronic properties and are adjacent in the periodic table.
In an accompanying News & Views article, Karthik Raman and Jagadeesh Moodera conclude
that the research may pave the way to developing a “generation of nano-electronic devices
that incorporate a wide range of hybrid materials showing unconventional magnetism”.
Article and author details
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Beating the stoner criterion using molecular interfaces
Corresponding Author
Oscar Cespedes
University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom
Email: o.cespedes@leeds.ac.uk, Tel: +44 113 3431885
N&V author
Karthik Raman
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Hyderabad, India
E-mail: kvraman@tifrh.res.in
DOI
10.1038/nature14621
Online paper*
http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nature14621
* Please link to the article in online versions of your report (the URL will go live after the embargo
ends).