Isolobal Solutions to the Hysteresis Challenge in Single-Molecule Magnetism

含有稀土元素的磁性材料对现代社会来说是不可或缺的，从大规模的风力涡轮机和电动汽车电池到小型设备，如智能手机和计算机硬盘驱动器（hdd），它们的应用范围非常广泛。稀土在硬盘中的使用尤其重要，因为传统的数据处理技术依赖于这些元素独特的磁性来处理和存储数字信息。这项技术正在努力跟上数据产生的速度，以及通过日益复杂的计算机建模过程来处理数据的需求。为了满足现代社会的需求及其对产生大量数据的渴望，迫切需要开发能够存储这些数据的新型磁性材料，同时减少存储介质的物理尺寸。在这个项目中，我们建议基于一个简单的前提来解决这个问题：尺寸很重要。硬盘中可以存储的数据量取决于磁性颗粒的大小；使这些粒子更小，每单位面积就可以存储更多的数字信息。传统的稀土磁性材料由几十纳米大小的颗粒组成。在这个项目中，我们将合成一种被称为单分子磁体（SMMs）的稀土磁体家族，它在单个分子水平上存储磁性信息，通常尺寸小于1纳米。与传统的原子磁铁相比，分子磁铁有一个主要的优势，那就是通过改变稀土元素所处的化学环境，分子磁铁的性能可以得到合理的改善。这方面使我们能够解决smm研究中的主要挑战，即它们的性质只能在使用冷冻剂冷却时观察到，这是昂贵且不切实际的。在一项突破性的进展中，PI报告了第一个在液氮沸点以上显示磁记忆效应的SMM。该基准体系的更广泛意义在于，它为开发新一代高温SMM提供了蓝图。因此，在这个项目中，我们将开发创新的化学路线，以获得新一代的SMM，其性能可以在前所未有的高温下观察到。这个项目的成功将有可能为将这些材料整合到功能设备中迈出重要的一步。

Magnetic materials containing rare-earth elements are indispensable to modern society, with their myriad applications ranging from the bulk scales of wind turbines and batteries for electronic vehicles to small-scale devices such as smart phones and computer hard-disk drives (HDDs). The use of rare earths in HDDs is particularly important since conventional technology for data processing relies on the unique magnetic properties of these elements to process and store digital information. This technology is struggling to keep pace with the rate at which data is generated and with the demands for processing it through increasingly sophisticated computer modelling processes.To meet the demands of modern society and its thirst for generating extremely large amounts of data, there is a pressing need to develop new types of magnetic material capable of storing this data whilst simultaneously decreasing the physical size of the storage medium. In this project, we propose to develop solutions to the problem based on a simple premise: size matters.The amount of data that can be stored in an HDD depends on the size of the magnetic particles; making these particles smaller should allow more digital information to be stored per unit area. Conventional rare-earth magnetic materials consist of particles with dimensions on the scale of tens of nanometres. In this project, we will synthesize a family of rare-earth magnets known as single-molecule magnets (SMMs), which store magnetic information at the level of individual molecules, typically with dimensions of less than one nanometre.Molecules offer a major advantage over conventional atom-based magnets, which is that their properties can be improved rationally by changing the chemical environment in which the rare-earth elements reside. This facet allows us to address the major challenge in studies of SMMs, which is that their properties can only be observed upon cooling with cryogens, which is expensive and impractical.In a ground-breaking development, the PI reported the first SMM to show magnetic memory effects above the boiling point of liquid nitrogen. The wider significance of this benchmark system is that it provides a blueprint for developing a new generation of high-temperature SMM. Therefore, in this project we will develop innovative chemical routes to a new generation of SMM with properties that can be observed at unprecedentedly high temperatures. Success with this project will potentially take an important step towards the incorporation of these materials into functional devices.