Carbon nanotube nanoelectromechanical systems as magnetometers for single-molecule magnets.

Abstract

Due to outstanding mechanical and electronic properties, carbon nanotube nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) were recently proposed as ultrasensitive magnetometers for single-molecule magnets (SMM). In this article, we describe a noninvasive grafting of a SMM on a carbon nanotube NEMS, which conserves both the mechanical properties of the carbon nanotube NEMS and the magnetic properties of the SMM. We will demonstrate that the nonlinearity of a carbon nanotube's mechanical motion can be used to probe the reversal of a molecular spin, associated with a bis(phthalocyaninato)terbium(III) single-molecule magnet, providing an experimental evidence for the detection of a single spin by a mechanical degree of freedom on a molecular level.