AVS 56th International Symposium & Exhibition
    Magnetic Interfaces and Nanostructures Friday Sessions
       Session MI-FrM

Paper MI-FrM3
Tuning Molecule-Mediated Spin Coupling in Bottom-Up Fabricated Vanadium-TCNE Nanostructures

Friday, November 13, 2009, 9:00 am, Room C1

Session: Molecular/Organic Based Magnetism
Presenter: X. Zhang, University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Authors: D. Wegner, University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
R. Yamachika, University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
X. Zhang, University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Y. Wang, University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
T. Baruah, University of Texas, El Paso
M.R. Pederson, Naval Research Laboratory
B.M. Bartlett, University of California, Berkeley
J.R. Long, University of California, Berkeley
M.F. Crommie, University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Correspondent: Click to Email
We have fabricated hybrid organic/inorganic magnetic molecules based on vanadium atoms and tetracyanoethylene (TCNE) ligands in an atom-by-atom fashion using a cryogenic scanning tunneling microscope. Using tunneling spectroscopy we observe spin-polarized molecular orbitals as well as a structure-dependent Kondo resonance. For complexes having two V atoms, the Kondo behavior can be switched on and off by a minute structural change that leaves the spin-containing orbital essentially unchanged. This can be explained by a tunable, structure-dependent change in the vanadium spin-spin coupling strength through the TCNE molecule, as confirmed by density functional calculations. The present findings offer a new route for designing molecular spin nanostructures with atomic-scale precision.