arXiv · 0912.2640
Electrical manipulation of spin states in a single electrostatically gated transition-metal complex
Abstract
We demonstrate an electrically controlled high-spin (S=5/2) to low-spin (S=1/2) transition in a three-terminal device incorporating a single Mn2+ ion coordinated by two terpyridine ligands. By adjusting the gate-voltage we reduce the terpyridine moiety and thereby strengthen the ligand-field on the Mn-atom. Adding a single electron thus stabilizes the low-spin configuration and the corresponding sequential tunnelling current is suppressed by spin-blockade. From low-temperature inelastic cotunneling spectroscopy, we infer the magnetic excitation spectrum of the molecule and uncover also a strongly gate-dependent singlet-triplet splitting on the low-spin side. The measured bias-spectroscopy is shown to be consistent with an exact diagonalization of the Mn-complex, and an interpretation of the data is given in terms of a simplified effective model.
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Edgar A. Osorio, Kasper Moth-Poulsen, Herre S. J. van der Zant, Jens Paaske, Per Hedegard, Karsten Flensberg, Jesper Bendix, Thomas Bjornholm. 2009-12-14. Electrical manipulation of spin states in a single electrostatically gated transition-metal complex. https://doi.org/10.1021/nl9029785
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