Nature 354, 463 - 465 (12 December 1991); doi:10.1038/354463a0

Layered magnetic structure of a metal cluster ion

D. Gatteschi^*‡, L. Pardi^*, A. L. Barra^*, A. Müller^†‡ & J. Döring^†

^* Dipartimento di Chimica, Università di Firenze, Italy
^† Fakultät für Chemie, Universität Bielefeld, Germany
^‡ To whom correspondence should be addressed.

THE ability of molecular materials to perform many of the optical, electronic and magnetic functions traditionally associated with extended two- and three-dimensional inorganic solids^1,2 has given rise to intensive research on molecular electronics^3,4. In the course of investigating the properties of a class of anionic metal clusters based on the vanadium oxide systems^5–8, which bear analogy with those of bulk solid materials⁶, we have encountered unusual magnetic behaviour in a finite molecular system. A cluster containing 15 paramagnetic vanadium atoms consists of three distinct layers in each of which the magnetization shows a distinct temperature dependence. Analogous behaviour in bulk systems can be found in magnetic multilayers⁹ and also in copper oxide superconductors, where copper layers with strong antiferromagnetic coupling are separated by layers of rare-earth ions in which the coupling is very weak¹⁰. The behaviour of this cluster suggests the possibility of applications for molecular-scale switching.

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