Prof Arzhang Ardavan

Abstract:

Endohedral fullerenes encapsulating a spin-active atom or ion within a carbon cage offer a route to self-assembled arrays such as spin chains. In the case of metallofullerenes the charge transfer between the atom and the fullerene cage has been thought to limit the electron spin phase coherence time (T 2) to the order of a few microseconds. We study electron spin relaxation in several species of metallofullerene as a function of temperature and solvent environment, yielding a maximum T2 in deuterated o-terphenyl greater than 200 μs for Y, Sc, and La@C82. The mechanisms governing relaxation (T1, T2) arise from metal-cage vibrational modes, spin-orbit coupling and the nuclear spin environment. The T2 times are over 2 orders of magnitude longer than previously reported and consequently make metallofullerenes of interest in areas such as spin labeling, spintronics, and quantum computing. © 2010 The American Physical Society.

Abstract:

Molecular nanostructures may constitute the fabric of future quantum technologies, if their degrees of freedom can be fully harnessed. Ideally one might use nuclear spins as low-decoherence qubits and optical excitations for fast controllable interactions. Here, we present a method for entangling two nuclear spins through their mutual coupling to a transient optically excited electron spin, and investigate its feasibility through density-functional theory and experiments on a test molecule. From our calculations we identify the specific molecular properties that permit high entangling power gates under simple optical and microwave pulses; synthesis of such molecules is possible with established techniques.

Abstract:

We present an electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) study of ErSc2N@C80 fullerene in which there are two Er3+ sites corresponding to two different configurations of the ErSc2N cluster inside the C80 cage. For each configuration, the EPR spectrum is characterized by a strong anisotropy of the g factors (gx,y = 2.9, gz = 13.0 and gx,y = 5.3, gz = 10.9). Illumination within the cage absorption range (<600 nm) induces a rearrangement of the ErSc2N cluster inside the cage. We follow the temporal dependence of this rearrangement phenomenologically under various conditions.

Abstract:

The electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) of spin-active metallofullerenes (MFs) La@ C82 and Sc@ C82 diluted in solid-state C60 crystalline matrices with molar concentrations varying from 0.4% to 100% are investigated. For dilute concentrations, the hyperfine structure of the MFs is resolved, and as the concentration increases exchange narrowing is observed leading to a single peak in the EPR. Sc@ C82 MFs are inserted into single-walled carbon nanotubes to form peapods with concentrations of 10% and 0.1%, diluted with C60. For the case of peapods containing 10% Sc@ C82 a strong narrow peak is observed in X -band CW EPR, but not pulsed measurements. Peapods containing Ce@ C82 MFs are prepared and these also show similar CW EPR to the Sc@ C82, indicating the peak arises from charge transfer with the SWNT. © 2010 The American Physical Society.