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A Note on Why Low-Symmetry Lanthanide Clusters Can Be Good Single Molecule Magnets
1Physikalisches Institut, Universität Freiburg, D-79104 Freiburg, Germany.
None:
Lanthanide complexes with a low-symmetry ligand environment are frequently observed to exhibit good single molecule magnet (SMM) behavior, which is seemingly at odds with the established understanding that strong Ising-type magnetic anisotropy is essential. This and other paradoxical features of such clusters are shown to follow naturally from a semiclassical treatment of the ligand field, which becomes valid in the limit of large total angular momentum J. Quantum corrections are discussed qualitatively. The resulting physical picture offers clear insight into a broad class of lanthanide-based SMMs.
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