This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Researchers at The University of Manchester and the Australian National University have developed a new class of molecular magnets that combines the most successful features of previous designs, resulting in some of the strongest magnetic memory properties reported to date. The work, published in Nature Communications, centers on single-molecule magnets (SMMs), a class of materials capable of storing magnetic information within individual molecules.
These materials are being explored as candidates for future ultrahigh-density data storage technologies, as they offer the potential for information to be stored on a dramatically smaller scale than in conventional magnetic devices. Controlling the geometry of lanthanide compounds has long been one of the major challenges in molecular magnet design. The researchers have overcome part of that challenge by combining two molecular architectures that had previously delivered strong, but different, magnetic properties.
"The best single-molecule magnets reported over the past decade have tended to excel in different areas. Our goal was to bring the most successful features of these designs together in a single molecule. By carefully controlling the structure around the dysprosium center, we've produced materials that perform strongly across several key measures of magnetic memory," said Professor David Mills, professor of inorganic chemistry at The University of Manchester.
The international team, led by Mills at Manchester and Professor Nicholas Chilton at the Australian National University, combined cyclopentadienyl ligands, which help create rigid molecular structures, with amide ligands, which form particularly short dysprosium-nitrogen bonds. The resulting molecules adopted near-linear structures with ligand angles approaching 172°, a geometry believed to contribute in part to their exceptional magnetic behavior. Alongside magnetic hysteresis temperatures of up to 92 K, the new materials were able to store magnetic information for 100 seconds at temperatures up to 40 K, indicating significantly improved magnetic memory retention compared with earlier dysprosium-amide systems.
Mills continued, "Controlling the geometries of lanthanide compounds is notoriously difficult as the chemical bonding is nondirectional. Therefore, although near-linear dysprosium compounds have long been predicted to give the best SMMs, we are only now able to use carefully selected combinations of ligands to consistently deliver these target molecules." The ability to create SMMs with magnetic memory effects at higher temperatures widens the opportunity for these molecules to be used in high-density data storage devices, which is important for the ever-increasing amount of data storage required for our technological age. Jack Emerson-King et al, Axial dysprosium cyclopentadienyl-amide single-molecule magnets with hysteresis up to 92 kelvin, Nature Communications (2026).
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-026-77104-z Journal information: Nature Communications MA in English, copy editor since 2021 with experience in higher education and health content. Dedicated to trustworthy science news. Full profile → Bachelor's in mathematical biology, Master's in creative writing.
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