Molecular nanomagnets: towards molecular spintronics

Molecular nanomagnets, often called single-molecule Magnets, have attracted much interest in recent years both from experimental and theoretical point of view. These systems are organometallic clusters characterised by it large Spin ground state with it predominant uniaxial anisotropy. The quantum nature of these systems makes them very appealing for phenomena occurring Oil the mesoscopic scale. i.e.. Lit the boundary between classical and quantum physics. Below their blocking temperature, they exhibit magnetisation hysteresis the classical macroscale property of a magnet, as well as quantum tunnelling of magnetisation and quantum phase interference, the properties of it microscale entity. Quantum effects are advantageous for some Potential applications Of single-molecule magnets, e.g., in providing the quantum superposition of States for quantum computing, but are a disadvantage in others such as information storage. It is believed that single-molecule magnets have it potential for quantum computation. in particular because they are extremely small and almost identical. allowing to obtain. in it single measurement, statistical averages of it larger number Of qubits. This review introduces some basic concepts that are needed to Understand the quantum phenomena observed in molecular nanomagnets and discusses new trends of the field of molecular nanomagnets towards molecular spintronics.