Clarkson University researchers have published a paper in a prestigious chemistry journal on the design of next-generation, ultra-high density data storage materials.
The article, "Metal−Organic Frameworks as Platforms for the Controlled Nanostructuring of Single-Molecule Magnets," appears in a 2015 issue of the Journal of American Chemical Society.
Assistant Professor of Chemistry & Biomolecular Science Mario Wriedt worked on the paper with chemistry doctoral student Darpan Aulakh of India and biomolecular science undergraduate student Joshua Pyser '16 of Dalton, Mass., who was funded by a CAMP summer research stipend.
While data storage density has increased greatly in recent decades due to better technology, Wriedt said, this increase won't continue indefinitely. There is a limit on how small the magnetic domains in traditional hard drives can be before they collapse and make it impossible for computers to read and write data on them.
"Due to physical limitations, we can't make these domains smaller than 100 to 200 nanometers because they would lose their magnetic properties," he said.
Single-molecule magnets, however, behave like traditional magnets and can be tiny as a molecule, Wriedt said. His laboratory now is developing a nanostructuration approach that uses metal-organic frameworks to arrange and protect these magnets.
"A single-molecule magnet can be as small as 1.5 nanometers," he said. "However, a metal-organic framework is needed to arrange and protect them in a controlled nanostructure, making them usable for real world applications."
The metal-organic framework significantly enhances the stability of the magnets, which allows for more dense data storage capabilities. Wriedt said the next step in the research is to continue evaluating different structure-property relationships between metal-organic frameworks and single-molecule magnets.
"We have to follow up with a lot of systematic investigation of this," he said.
Read the full article at http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/ic5026813 .
