Dresden 2011 – scientific programme
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MA: Fachverband Magnetismus
MA 21: Bio- and Molecular Magnetism II
MA 21.6: Talk
Tuesday, March 15, 2011, 12:15–12:30, HSZ 401
Optical switching of single chain magnets — •Eric Heintze1, Fadi el Hallak2, Angelo Rettori3, Federico Totti4, Martin Dressel1, and Lapo Bogani1 — 11. Physikalisches Institut, Universität Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Germany — 2London centre for Nanotechnology, University College London, United Kingdom, London — 3Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Firenze, Firenze, Italy — 4Dipartimento di Chimica, Università di Firenze, Firenze, Italy
The control of the magnetic state of materials using light is seen as an appealing ingredient for the next generation of photonic or spintronics devices for information-storage, opto-electronic systems and energy conversion. Molecular magnets show a hysteresis cycle and magnetic bistability as their relaxation time becomes exponentially long at low temperatures. Here we show, for the first time, that it is possible to switch the magnetization dynamics of molecular magnetic chains using light irradiation at low powers. We investigate the switching of the magnetization dynamics on the single chain magnet Co(hfac)2NITPhOMe. To this aim we developed photon excited torque magnetometry. Measurements of the magnetization dynamics indicate that the energy barrier can be altered by light, consistently with the creation of preferential sites of magnetic soliton nucleation. Ab-initio calculations show very good agreement between the expected energy barrier after irradiation and the experimentally extracted one. This result will allow controlling the magnetization of molecular nanowires in spintronic and photo-switchable magnetic systems.