| Name | Mr. Thai Son Cao |
|---|---|
| Organization or Institution | Chemistry Department, University of Florida |
| Topic | Inorganic Chemistry |
| Title | Spin switching in molecular nanoparticles of manganite perovskites
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| Author(s) | Thai Son Cao, Khalil A. Abboud, and George Christou |
| Author Institution(s) | Department of Chemistry, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA |
| Abstract | The AMnO3 manganites (A = main group or lanthanide metal) with a perovskite structure are known for their fascinating properties, such as multiferroicity, colossal magnetoresistance, piezoelectricity, and magnetoelasticity. Our group is interested in a bottom-up molecular approach to ultra-small nanoparticles of important metal oxides, what we are calling “molecular nanoparticles”. The molecular cluster [Ce3Mn8O8(O2CPh)18(HO2CPh)2], henceforth Ce3Mn8, recently reported by our group is the first molecular nanoparticle of the perovskite repeating unit; as such, it is an ideal system to study the origins of some perovskite properties in detail. Ce3Mn8 possesses the same ground state spin vector configuration as the C-type AF perovskites (AF = antiferromagnetic), with low-lying A-type AF excited states suggesting that small structural perturbations might switch the ground state of the molecule to A-type AF. Such changes have been predicted in magnetic perovskites under perturbations such as pressure. To investigate this, different derivatives of the Ce3Mn8 cluster have been synthesized, in which Cl or Me substituents have been introduced into the ortho position of the benzoate ligands to induce small structural perturbations that might affect the ground state. This presentation will describe the syntheses and structures of these 2-Cl-Bz and 2-Me-Bz derivatives, and the analysis of their magnetic properties to assess whether their ground states have been switched. |
