8. Other opportunities and applications for molecule magnets

8.1 Spintronics

The magnetic and quantum nature of magnet molecules opens up a wide range of opportunities in fields related to molecular magnetism.

As early as 2008, magnet molecules were proposed as the molecules of choice for the development of spintronics or spin electronics. Spintronics is the study and manufacture of devices that use not only the electron's charge, but also its spin, to function. A stream of electrons is made up of spin up and spin down carriers, which not only carry magnetic information, but also interact differently with magnetic materials. This encoding of information in spin is reminiscent of the basic properties of magnet molecules, which also store magnetic information via their giant spin. Molecular magnets have been used in spintronics,...