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Kagomé lattice

A molecular toolkit for magnetism

Nature Materials volume 1, pages 91–92 (2002)Cite this article

Kagomé lattices are the most geometrically frustrated magnetic systems. But their magnetic properties remain poorly characterized because they are difficult to synthesize. A new versatile synthetic route to Kagomé lattices yields a spin-frustrated material from paramagnetic building blocks.

The Kagomé lattice has been the subject of much theoretical study, but there are few examples of molecular Kagomé lattices, and nanoscale versions have not been readily available to synthetic chemists until now6,8. In terms of building new magnetic materials, Kagomé lattices are attractive because they naturally lead to spin-frustration when the system contains antiferromagnetic interactions. Spin frustration can be understood by comparing the behaviour of magnetic spins located at the vertices of a square lattice with those on a triangular lattice. In antiferromagnetic materials, magnetic spins tend to align antiparallel with their neighbours, which is possible if the spins are in a square lattice, but impossible for a triangular lattice because one of the spins in each triangle cannot align simultaneously with both its neighbours. Similarly, in a Kagomé lattice some of the spins remain frustrated and the material can develop weak long-range ferromagnetic order, especially when the lattice is constructed at the nanoscale.

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Figure 1: From theory to reality.
Figure 2: Two structural isomers can be obtained by linking the vertices of molecular squares.

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  1. Department of Chemistry , University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, 65211, Missouri, USA

    Jerry L. Atwood

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  1. Jerry L. Atwood
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Atwood, J. A molecular toolkit for magnetism. Nature Mater 1, 91–92 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat740

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