Scientists from the Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry named after. N.S. Kurnakov RAS and the Institute of Organometallic Chemistry named after. G.A. Razuvaev RAS have developed a simple one-step method for obtaining a compound with the properties of a monomolecular magnet. For the first time, researchers have established the possibility of using a new type of starting material that simultaneously contains nitrogen and oxygen atoms to construct molecular magnets. The development is promising for the creation of new information storage devices, as well as molecular sensors. The work was published in the New Journal of Chemistry. The study was supported by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation
The synthesis of materials whose physical properties can be controlled by external influences, such as a magnetic field, is currently one of the key areas in inorganic chemistry, since new materials made on the basis of such materials can be used in fundamentally new molecular electronics devices. Due to the prospect of reducing the size of electronics by controlling properties at the molecular level, molecular electronics is attracting great interest from the scientific community.
Chemists from the Institute of General Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences proposed using a new organic molecule containing oxygen and nitrogen atoms to modify the environment of the cobalt ion and fine-tune its magnetic properties.
“We select the environment of the cobalt atom from various organic molecules so that the new compound has optimal magnetic characteristics, such as fast switching, remanent magnetization, resistance to moisture and atmospheric oxygen. In this work, we showed for the first time the fundamental possibility of using a new organic molecule, simultaneously containing nitrogen and oxygen atoms, to construct molecular magnets. As far as we know, before our work, no one had used such substances to synthesize monomolecular magnets. The physical parameters of the new compound are not yet record-breaking, but it is stable in air, unlike most record holders,” said Dmitry Yambulatov, Candidate of Chemical Sciences, senior researcher at the Laboratory of Chemistry of Coordination Polynuclear Compounds of the Institute of General Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
As a result of the work, a new cobalt compound was synthesized using a simple one-step method, which has switchable magnetic properties when an external magnetic field is applied. The authors believe that the result obtained, first of all, will draw the attention of colleagues to the possibility of using new organic substances to create switchable materials.
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