Transition-metal dimers and physical limits on magnetic anisotropy

Recent advances in nanoscience have raised interest in the minimum bit size required for classical information storage. This bit size is determined by the necessity for bistability with suppressed quantum tunnelling and energy barriers that exceed ambient temperatures. In the case of magnetic information storage, much attention has centred on molecular magnets(1) with bits consisting of about 100 atoms, magnetic uniaxial anisotropy energy barriers of about 50 K and very slow relaxation at low temperatures. Here, we draw attention to the remarkable magnetic properties of sometransition-metal dimers, which have energy barriers approaching 500 K with only two atoms. The spin dynamics of these ultrasmall nanomagnets is strongly affected by a Berry phase, which arises from quasi-degeneracies at the electronic highest occupied molecular orbital energy. In a giant-spin approximation, this Berry phase makes the effective reversal barrier thicker.