Spin state of spin-crossover complexes: From single molecules to ultrathin films

Spin Crossover Nanomaterials: From Fundamental Concepts to Devices

“…As a final note on size effects we shell mention about the recent spectacular progress, which was achieved in analyzing the SCO properties of isolated molecules deposited on surfaces. Motivated by the interest of SCO molecules in the context of molecular electronics and spintronics, recently a number of SCO complexes have been deposited by sublimation under ultrahigh vacuum conditions on clean, well‐defined surfaces (including metallic as well as insulating ones) to obtain SCO films with thicknesses down to the sub‐monolayer level . In most cases scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and/or X‐ray absorption spectroscopy complemented with ab initio calculations were used to infer the structure and properties of isolated molecules as well as molecules in ultrathin films consisting of only a few layers.…”

“…The most advanced and most straightforward device concepts use photonic principles—mainly for sensing purposes, but recent results revealed promising perspectives also for applications in electronic junctions and mechanical actuators . At this point it must be noted that, in strong connection with the development of SCO nanomaterials, there has been a significant experimental and theoretical progress also in exploring the properties of single isolated SCO molecules on surfaces with the primary aim to use them in single molecule electronic devices. This field will not be reviewed here, but we will refer to several achievements, which are also useful to understand the behavior of a larger ensemble of molecules (e.g., particles).…”

Charge Transport and Electrical Properties of Spin Crossover Materials: Towards Nanoelectronic and Spintronic Devices

“…This switching phenomenon has been also used to demonstrate a memristor operation in these devices. Gruber et al [73] continued the work on the same complex deposited on Cu(100) surface with coverages ranging from 0.1 to 1.8 monolayers on which STM measurements where performed. A coverage-independent coexistence of both spin states at low temperatures (4 K) on the first monolayer has been reported.…”

Fragmentation and Distortion of Terpyridine-Based Spin-Crossover Complexes on Au(111)

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] Considerable effort has been made to prepare such complexes on surfaces, e. g. for electrical contacting. [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28] To enable physical vapor deposition, which is the most common technique for obtaining high-quality films, compounds with increased thermal stability have been synthesized. However, even for such robust compounds, fragmen-tation issues have been reported.…”