Thin-Film Organic Based Magnets
The recent commercial success of OLEDs demonstrates the promise of organic electronic materials, which benefit from low cost, chemical tunability, and mechanical flexibility. There is a lot of unexplored territory in this relatively new field of materials science, and our group’s interest in magnetic devices and spin physics has motivated us to explore the science and potential spintronics and microwave electronics applications of thin-film, organic-based magnetic materials.
Our work has focused on the ferrimagnetic semiconductor vanadium tetracyanoethylene (V[TCNE]x), which has a spin-polarized band structure, anomalously high magnetoresistance, extremely narrow linewidth (see figure) and can be deposited on a wide variety of substrates at low temperatures and pressures. This makes V[TCNE]x the first material in over 50 years to challenge the inorganic ferrimagnet yttrium iron garnet (YIG) for ultra-low loss magnetic resonance. Through careful optimization of the growth conditions, we demonstrate a Curie temperature of 600 K, the highest value achieved for this class of organic magnets, and although unprotected V[TCNE]x is sensitive to air, we have recently demonstrated that encapsulation methods can improve film lifetimes by 3 orders of magnitude.
These magnetic properties, along with the relative stability of the material and ease of depositing it on a wide variety of substrates, make this a potentially flexible material for use magnetoelectronics applications that rely on the microwave frequency response of magnetic materials in application such as microwave filters and phase shifters. We are also interested in exploring more ambitious spintronics applications in which an organic-based ferrimagnet could be used to generate, measure, and manipulate spin polarizations in organic spin channels. Finally, we are particularly excited about the potential for coherent magnonics to play a role in the development of quantum information systems (QIS) and related technologies.
Current Members Working in this field:
Seth Kurfman , Huma Yusuf, Donley Cormode, Ellie Holmgren, Rob Claassen, Bryan Orozco
Collaborators: