Electrically controllable molecular spin crossover switching in Fe(phen)(2)(NCS)(2) thin film

摘要

Spin crossover molecular complex Fe(phen)(2)(NCS)(2) in thin film form (20-300 nm) is obtained by simple dip-coating technique on glass substrates. The growth of the molecular films is confirmed by optical and X-ray diffraction data. The morphology of the samples shows distributed nanocrystals with an average size ca. 12 nm. We measure the current (I)-voltage (V) characteristics of a device with 300 nm film thickness and show that application of electric field can induce spin state switching. The electric field experienced by individual nanocrystals separated by nanometric gap is supposed to be quite high and is plausibly playing the crucial role in instigating switching in molecular nanocrystals. The result is quite significant towards developing room temperature molecular spin cross-over switching devices in the nanoscale limit.