Xue Group Published and Front Cover in EurJIC
The Xue group is excited to announce that their paper “Probing Magnetic Excitations in CoII Single‐Molecule Magnets by Inelastic Neutron Scattering” was published and was selected as the front cover art in the European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry.
This research explores how single-molecule magnets (SMMs) and qubits are of intense current interest for their potential applications as new generation of data storage materials and quantum computing. Graduate student, Duncan Moseley, explains, “The cobalt compound studied here shows SMM properties. Direct observation of magnetic transitions in SMMs and spectroscopic characterization of phonons (molecular and lattice vibrations) in SMMs are challenging.”
The work shows that Inelastic Neutron Scattering (INS) is a method to probe magnetic transitions in SMMs. Xue’s group, through collaboration with scientists at several institutions, including Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at ORNL, NIST Center for Neutron Research (NCNR) and Max Planck Institutes in Germany, investigated two magnetic transitions in the Co SMM.
Their recent work in Nature Communications using Raman and far-IR showed spin-phonon/vibration couplings in the compound. However, INS spectra here unambiguously reveal the magnetic transitions. Phonon calculations in the work help provide a complete picture of how this cobalt-based SMM behaves.