ABSTRACT
The important observation is that the bonding structure of the molecule to the magnetic surface can drastically alter the spin selectivity of the interface, so that one can convert bond engineering in spin engineering. While spintronics is consolidating as the leading technology in the magnetic data storage industry and is emerging into both the sensors and the random access memories arena, the interest of the scientific community has grown into investigating new materials different from conventional metals and semiconductors. A better strategy appears to be that of operating with molecules that “fly,” that is, molecules that can be evaporated over a magnetic surface in ultrahigh vacuum conditions and can be probed by scanning tunnel microscopy (STM). In addition to the ease of fabrication, STM measurements for single spins can provide detailed information on the magnetic excitation spectrum and on how this is affected by magnetic coupling, anisotropy, and magnetic fields.
