Structural Manipulation of Spin Excitations in a Molecular Junction

Abstract

Single metallocene molecules act as sensitive spin detectors when decorating the probe of a scanning tunneling microscope (STM). However, the impact of the atomic-scale electrode details on the molecular spin state has remained elusive to date. Here, a nickelocene (Nc) STM junction is manipulated in an atomwise manner showing clearly the dependence of the spin excitation spectrum on the anchoring of Nc to Cu(111), a Cu monomer, and trimer. Moreover, while the spin state of the same Nc tip is a triplet with tunable spin excitation energies upon contacting the surface, it transitions to a Kondo-screened doublet on a Cu atom. Notably, the nontrivial magnetic exchange interaction of the molecular spin with the electron continuum of the substrate determines the spectral line shape of the spin excitations.