Electrical and Thermal Control of Magnetic Exchange Interactions

Abstract

We investigate the far-from-equilibrium nature of magnetic anisotropy and exchange interactions between molecular magnets embedded in a tunnel junction. By mapping to an effective spin model, these magnetic interactions can be divided into three types: isotropic Heisenberg, anisotropic Ising, and anisotropic Dzyaloshinski-Moriya contributions, which are attributed to the background non-equilibrium electronic structures. We further demonstrate that both the magnetic self and exchange interactions can be controlled either electrically by gating and tuning voltage bias, or thermally by adjusting temperature bias. We show that the Heisenberg and Ising interactions scale linearly, while the Dzyaloshinski-Moriya interaction scales quadratically, with the molecule-lead coupling strength. The interactions scale linearly with the effective spin-polarizations of the leads and the molecular coherence. Our results pave a way for smart control of magnetic exchange interactions at atomic and molecular levels.