Highly controlled deposition of organic magnets on well-organised insulator surfaces

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Maria Benedetta Casu
• Subject Area: Physical Chemistry of Solids and Surfaces, Material Characterisation
• Term: from 2011 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 202799249

Organic and molecular-based magnets are a broad, emerging class of magnetic materials that expand the materials properties typically associated with magnets to include low density, transparency, electrical insulation, and low-temperature fabrication, typical of organic materials. In particular, organic and molecular-based magnets are lighter, more flexible, and less energy intensive to make than conventional magnets. It is easily foreseen how these molecules could have a relevant impact towards the idea of transporting information via a single molecule.From this point of view, the deposition on a substrate of organic-based magnets is the necessary step for technological applications. Until now, most of the work was focused on the chemistry of this class of molecules. Few attempts to deposit organic-based magnets have been done mostly in wet environment: the concepts of controlled deposition as in molecular beam deposition/epitaxy have never been used. Deposition is the challenge that I will address in a systematic way, with a strategy never applied before to molecular magnets, also by using highly resolved soft X-ray techniques, spectroscopy and microscopy, including investigations at synchrotrons.This approach applies for the first time the knowledge matured in the growth of thin films of small organic molecules to the class of molecular magnets. The milestones are: 1) Optimization of the growth on the selected insulator substrates. 2) Description of the molecule+substrate system. 3) Description of the magnetic properties. 4) Correlation of the results: electronic structure, film structure, morphology, and magnetic properties.With this project I intend to bridge the gap between the present status in organic and molecular-based magnets and the possibility that such materials offer in terms of basic knowledge and technology, involving physics, chemistry, material science, and engineering.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants