In the present work, the magnetic properties of small alloyed metal clusters, consisting of about a dozen atoms, is described by experimental methods and theoretical modeling. The focus is on the magnitude of the magnetic moment and the electron spin dynamics as a function of cluster size, composition, symmetry, and hyperfine coupling. In molecular beam experiments in high vacuum, the intrinsic properties of clusters of defined size and composition is studied isolated from external influences such as intermolecular interactions or a substrate. Deflection of neutral particles in an inhomogeneous magnetic field according to Stern and Gerlach allow the measurement of the magnetic moment. In double deflection experiments with two deflection fields in series, the spin dynamics upon a change in magnetic flux density is probed. In addition, a model based on avoided crossings between the spin microstates has been developed, allowing a physically meaningful interpretation of the experimental observations.
The g factor of the endohedrally doped icosahedral cage cluster MnSn12 corresponds to the free electron value of g = 2.0. In contrast, for the endohedral AlSn12 with pyritohedral symmetry of the tin cage, g = 2.7 is observed, suggesting a significant orbital contribution to the magnetic moment. For both cluster species, the deflection in an inhomogeneous magnetic field can be reversed in a second field as long as the magnetic flux density is kept constant in the intermediate region. The microscopic model reveals that in the case of MnSn12, due to the small spin-rotation coupling, a change in spin state actually occurs only at about 1% of the avoided crossings. In contrast, this value is close to 100% for AlSn12
because the spin-rotation coupling is much larger due to spin-orbit coupling. Moreover, experiments with isotopically enriched tin samples show that a decrease in the number of nuclear spins in the first coordination sphere around the central aluminum atom leads to fewer nonresonant spin state changes.
This is manifested in the double deflection experiments on AlSn12, but also in Stern-Gerlach experiments on Al120Sn11. Here, in contrast to AlSn11 with natural tin, a splitting of the molecular beam similar to the cluster species AlSn12 and MnSn12 is observed. While the observations on AlSn12 are attributed to spin dynamics at intersections of hyperfine bands, the reduction of molecular symmetry due to isotopic exchange must also be considered for AlSn11.
The experimental results on various doped tin clusters presented in this work provide interesting insights into how the magnetic properties of these species can be affected. Modeling based on avoided crossings of spin microstates allows the interpretation the experiments and provides a link to theoretical
calculations of cluster properties by quantum chemical methods. | English |