Influence of intermolecular interactions on magnetic observables

Very often it is an implied paradigm of molecular magnetism that magnetic molecules in a crystal interact so weakly that measurements of dc magnetic observables reflect ensemble properties of single molecules. But the number of cases where the assumption of virtually noninteracting molecules does not hold grows steadily. A deviation from the noninteracting case can especially clearly be seen in clusters with antiferromagnetic couplings, where steps of the low-temperature magnetization curve are smeared out with increasing intermolecular interaction. In this investigation we demonstrate with examples in one, two, and three space dimensions how intermolecular interactions influence typical magnetic observables such as magnetization, susceptibility, and specific heat.