Organic-Based Magnets: Opportunities in Photoinduced Magnetism, Spintronics, Fractal Magnetism, and Beyond

This article is based on a presentation on organic-based magnets given as part of Symposium X—Frontiers of Materials Research on December 4, 2002, at the 2002 Materials Research Society Fall Meeting in Boston. The advent of organic-based magnets opened the opportunity for tuning magnetic properties by molecular design and the discovery of new phenomena that rely on the internal structure of the molecules that make up these magnets. In the past 18 years, numerous classes of organic-based ferromagnets, ferrimagnets, and spin glasses (spins essentially frozen in place without long-range order) have been reported. These materials have magnetic ordering temperatures ranging from <1 K to above room temperature and demonstrate many of the magnetic properties associated with conventional magnets. This article concentrates on new phenomena that are unique to organic-based magnets. Three of these effects—“high-temperature” light-induced magnetism, spin-polarized magnetic organic semiconductors with the potential for spintronics, and the development of fractal magnetic order—are discussed to illustrate the richness of opportunity in organic-based magnets.