Surface Deposition Induced Reduction of the Ground State Spin in Cr 10 Wheel

• Published in: Advanced materials interfaces Vol. 10; no. 20
• Main Authors: Bartolomé, Elena, Ferrari, Ludovica, Sedona, Francesco, Arauzo, Ana, Rubín, Javier, Luzón, Javier, Herrero‐Albillos, Julia, Panighel, Mirco, Mugarza, Aitor, Rancan, Marzio, Sambi, Mauro, Armelao, Lidia, Bartolomé, Juan, Bartolomé, Fernando
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01-07-2023
• ISSN: 2196-7350; 2196-7350
• DOI: 10.1002/admi.202300146

We report the deposition of monolayers and multilayers of {Cr
10
(OMe)
20
(O
2
CCMe
3
)
10
} wheels, hereafter {Cr
10
}, onto Au(111) and Cu(111) single‐crystal substrates, and their characterization combining scanning tunneling microscopy, X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy, X‐ray absorption spectroscopy, X‐ray natural linear dichroism, and X‐ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD). {Cr
10
} in bulk shows axial magnetic anisotropy and a cluster total spin
S
  =  9 ground state, stemming from an interaction scheme of two semi‐crowns containing four Cr
3+
ions interacting ferromagnetically, separated by two Cr
3+
antiferromagnetically coupled. The one‐monolayer (1ML) samples of {Cr
10
} sublimated on Ag(111) and Cu(111) show slightly different applied magnetic field dependence of XMCD signal. The field‐dependence of the magnetization evolves from a lower curve for the 1ML {Cr
10
} samples to a curve resembling the bulk one as the number of layers is increased, as shown in a 14ML sample. Monte Carlo simulations allow rationalizing the magnetization curves of the 1ML samples in terms of a reduction of the cluster ground‐state total spin,
S
  =  3 or
S
  =  6, as a consequence of variations in the intra‐wheel coupling interactions induced by the on‐surface deposition. The sensitivity of the magnetic configuration of {Cr
10
} to minor distortions of the intramolecular conformation might be exploited to control magnetism by external stimuli for applications.