Towards Molecular Magnetic Switching with an Electric Bias

摘要

Molecular spintronics is an exciting concept for spin-based quantum computing. It is an extreme case of molecular electronics in which individual spins are used as the smallest possible logical electronic switches. Electronic devices operate on logic states, which are represented either by dynamic transport of matter or by static configuration of states. In the latter, spin orientation is one property that may determine the configuration of a state, for example, in a molecule. Although, in principle, spin-orbit coupling forms the basis of the manipulation of electron spins by purely electric means (for example, the spin Hall effect), directly controlling this molecular property is generally only feasible by applying an external magnetic field. Manipulation and direct control of the spin state in a molecule by an electric field, however, has the potential to revolutionize computer technologies and would open a new pathway to spin-based quantum information processing. For example, a logic device such as a molecular magnetic switch could be directly realized within an electronic circuit. Materials with such strongly correlated electron-state properties, for example, multiferroic systems that induce electric and magnetic coupling, are among the most highly desired in semiconductor technologies. To date, molecular systems with such properties are unknown.