Conclusion and Perspective

Abstract

As a new type of lanthanide SMMs, the novel endohedral metallofullerene (EMF) SMMs are introduced in the first part of this chapter. Furthermore, a survey of the organization of SMMs on surfaces and molecular spintronics is provided with an emphasis focusing on the applications of double-decker phthalocyanine lanthanide SMMs in spintronics. Herein, [LnPc 2 ] SMMs were not only used to fabricate three-terminal spin transistor, but its combination with carbon-based nanostructures leaded to the successful design of supramolecular spin valve. Remarkably, the nuclear spin of Tb atom embedded in [TbPc 2 ] SMM can be read out electronically through detecting the conductance jump, indicating the great promise of lanthanide SMMs in future applications.Keywords Endohedral metallofullerene · Au surface · Molecular spintronics · Spin transistor · Spin valve · Nuclear spin Naturally, the ultimate goal of SMM research is to develop future devices for possible applications in information storage and quantum computing. Therefore, now considerable efforts in some research groups have been devoted to the anchoring and organization of SMMs on surfaces as well as the design of molecular spintronics using SMMs. In contrast to traditional magnetic nanoparticles, the magnetic molecular clusters possess a well-defined structure and behave like perfectly monodisperse nanomagnets, which allow us to design a target molecule-based device. Nevertheless, one critical problem is the poor stability against water and temperature for most reported SMMs, especially lanthanide SMMs, and thus developing new type of SMM family is still necessary to obtain feasible SMMs with structural and magnetic stability when anchoring them on surfaces. Undoubtedly, a new era of collaborative research has been starting among synthetic chemists, physicists, and theorists [1]. This chapter will be devoted to this aspect.