Giant resistance change across the phase transition in spin crossover molecules

Abstract

The electronic origin of a large resistance change in nanoscale junctions incorporating spin crossover molecules is demonstrated theoretically by using a combination of density functional theory and the non-equilibrium Green's functions method for quantum transport. At the spin crossover phase transition there is a drastic change in the electronic gap between the frontier molecular orbitals. As a consequence, when the molecule is incorporated in a two terminal device, the current increases by up to four orders of magnitude in response to the spin change. This is equivalent to a magnetoresistance effect in excess of 3,000 %. Since the typical phase transition critical temperature for spin crossover compounds can be extended to well above room temperature, spin crossover molecules appear as the ideal candidate for implementing spin devices at the molecular level.

References in corpus (6)

• Supramolecular Spin Valves
• Unravelling the role of the interface for spin injection into organic semiconductors
• Spin qubits with electrically gated polyoxometalate molecules
• Magnetoresistance through a single molecule
• Study of molecular spin-crossover complex Fe(phen)2(NCS)2 thin films
• Electric field control of valence tautomeric interconversion in Cobalt dioxolene

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Assessment of density functional theory for iron(II) molecules across the spin-crossover transition
• Quantum transport simulation scheme including strong correlations and its application to organic radicals adsorbed on gold
• Multilevel Resistance Switching and Enhanced Spin Transition Temperature in Single Molecule Spin Crossover Nanogap Devices
• The ground state of a spin-crossover molecule calculated by diffusion Monte Carlo
• Pressure enhanced interplay among lattice, spin and charge in La2FeMnO6 mixed perovskite
• Statistical analysis of spin switching in coupled spin-crossover molecules
• Bias induced spin state transition mediated by electron excitations