Some years ago scientists started research of single-molecule magnets and magnetism of nanoparticles. For a long time molecules were considered as a non-magnetic materials, but this may be have been based on wrong assumption. The latest research shows that molecules can carry a relatively large magnetic moment. These are the Single-molecule magnets or SMM. SMM are a class of metalorganic compounds, that show superparamagnetic behavior below a certain blocking temperature at the molecular scale. In this temperature range, SMMs exhibit magnetic hysteresis of purely molecular origin.
These molecules does not only have the properties of magnets, they also have quantum properties which can be important for molecular data storage or for the purpose of the quantum computing. The nanometer-sized molecules consist of a fixed number of atoms, usually built for the specific function and therefore its production can be relatively inexpensive. In addition to the electric charge of the electrons and the magnetic moment or spin SMMs can be used for non-volatile memory or even a quantum computer.
Read more at our MDRL blog.