Quantum magnetism of individual Mn12 cluster

The Quantum Magnetism of Individual Manganese-12-Acetate Molecular Magnets Anchored at Surfaces
Steffen Kahle, Zhitao Deng, Nikola Malinowski, Charlène Tonnoir, Alicia Forment-Aliaga, Nicha Thontasen, Gordon Rinke, Duy Le, Volodymyr Turkowski, Talat S. Rahman,Stephan Rauschenbach, Markus Ternes, and Klaus Kern
Nano Letters 12, 518 (2012)

Here we demonstrate that electrospray ion beam deposition facilitates grafting of intact Mn₁₂ molecules on metal as well as ultrathin insulating surfaces enabling submolecular resolution imaging by scanning tunneling microscopy. Using scanning tunneling spectroscopy we detect spin excitations from the magnetic ground state of the molecule at an ultrathin boron nitride decoupling layer. Our results are supported by density functional theory based calculations and establish that individual Mn₁₂ molecules retain their intrinsic spin on a well chosen solid support.