AVS 58th Annual International Symposium and Exhibition
    Magnetic Interfaces and Nanostructures Division Wednesday Sessions
       Session MI-WeA

Paper MI-WeA3
Kondo Effect in a Molecular Machine

Wednesday, November 2, 2011, 2:40 pm, Room 105

Session: Spintronics, Magnetoelectronics, Multiferroics, and Dilute Magnetic Semiconductor Applications
Presenter: U. Gayani Eranga Perera, Ohio Univerisity
Authors: U.G.E. Perera, Ohio Univerisity
Y. Zang, Ohio Univerisity
H. Kersell, Ohio Univerisity
G. Vives, CNRS, Cemes, France
G. Rapenne, CNRS, Cemes, France
S.-W. Hla, Ohio University
Correspondent: Click to Email

Due to the continuous miniaturization of existing devices, artificial molecular machines have emerged as a new field in nano-science with the aim of developing novel motion systems on a single-molecule level. Here, we report the spin-electron interactions and local vibration signature of an artificially synthesized double-decker molecular rotor 4Fc3SEt on Au(111) surface for the first time using a low temperature scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy at 5 K. The 4Fc3SEt molecule has an upper-deck capability of rotating around the sandwiched metal ion as its rotational axis. The upper-deck has five arms and four of these have ferrocene units attached to pi-ring. A spin-active iron atom is caged at the center of each ferrocene unit. The lower-deck of the molecule is the stator and includes three SEt groups which are designed to anchor on to the Au(111) substrate. At 80 Ktemperature, most of the molecular rotors were found to be rotating due to thermal excitation. However, when the sample was cooled down to 5 K temperature, stationary conformation of the molecular rotors was determined by high resolution STM images. We probe the spin-electron interactions between the spin of the iron atom inside the molecule, and the surface state free electrons of Au(111) by monitoring the differential conductance (dI/dV) tunneling spectroscopy. Furthermore, by measuring dI2/dV2-V spectroscopy on the ferrocene units, the vibration signature of M(Cp)2 was identified. Both signatures reveal a site dependent orbital effect in the upper rotator arm. This work opens a novel avenue of molecular machines future nanoscale spintronic and mechanical applications. This work is supported by the US Department of Energy Basic Energy Sciences grant no. DE-FG02-02ER46012 and NSF OSIE 0730257.