Proximity-driven magnetic coupling between an open-shell nanographene and a rare-earth surface alloy

DOI

<p>Open-shell nanographenes have attracted significant attention due to their structurally tunable spin ground state. While most characterization has been conducted on weakly interacting substrates such as noble metals, the influence of magnetic surfaces remains largely unexplored. In a recent publication,  we investigate how TbAu<sub>2</sub>, a rare-earth-element-based surface alloy, affects the magnetic properties of phenalenyl (or [2]triangulene (2T)), the smallest spin-1/2 nanographene. Scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS) measurements reveal a striking contrast: while 2T on Au(111) exhibits a zero-bias Kondo resonance─a hallmark of a spin-1/2 impurity screened by the conduction electrons of the underlying metal─deposition on TbAu<sub>2</sub> induces a symmetric splitting of this feature by approximately 20 mV. This opening is large compared to the few meV splitting induced by externally applied magnetic fields. We attribute this splitting to a strong proximity-induced interaction with the ferromagnetic out-of-plane magnetization of TbAu<sub>2</sub>. Moreover, our combined experimental and many-body model analysis demonstrates that this interaction is spatially modulated, following the periodicity of the TbAu<sub>2</sub> surface superstructure. These findings highlight that TbAu<sub>2</sub> serves as a viable platform for stabilizing and characterizing the magnetic properties of spin-1/2 nanographenes and for studying the interactions of more complex π-magnetic materials with magnetic substrates. The record contains data supporting the results presented in the publication</p>

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.24435/materialscloud:b8-za
Related Identifier https://doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.5c09052
Related Identifier https://renkulab.io/p/aiida/materials-cloud-archive/sessions/01JZAQ1T34GEE1S98BV1300FXY/start?archive_url=https://archive.materialscloud.org/api/records/vp4dk-ne895/files/calculations.aiida/content
Related Identifier https://archive.materialscloud.org/communities/mcarchive
Related Identifier https://doi.org/10.24435/materialscloud:2t-rm
Metadata Access https://archive.materialscloud.org/oai2d?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_dc&identifier=oai:materialscloud.org:vp4dk-ne895
Provenance
Creator Bassi, Nicolò; Wilhelm, Jan; Krane, Nils; Xiang, Feifei; Čmelová, Patrícia; Turco, Elia; Gargiani, Pierluigi; Pignedoli, Carlo A.; Juríček, Michal; Fasel, Roman; Korytár, Richard; Ruffieux, Pascal
Publisher Materials Cloud
Contributor Pignedoli, Carlo A.
Publication Year 2025
Rights info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess; Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode
OpenAccess true
Contact archive(at)materialscloud.org
Representation
Language English
Resource Type info:eu-repo/semantics/other
Format application/gzip; application/octet-stream; text/plain
Discipline Materials Science and Engineering