Substituent effects on exchange anisotropy in single- and multiorbital organic radical magnets

The contribution of heavy-atom substituents to the overall spin-orbit interaction in two classes of organic radical molecular magnets is discussed. In “single-orbital” radicals, spin-orbit coupling (SOC) effects are well described with reference to pairwise anisotropic exchange interactions between singly occupied spin-bearing orbitals on neighboring molecules; anisotropy requires the presence of spin density on heavy-atom sites with principal quantum number n > 3. In “multiorbital” radicals, SOC involving virtual orbitals also contributes to anisotropic exchange and, as a result, the presence of heavy (n > 3) atoms in formally non-spin-bearing sites can enhance pseudodipolar ferromagnetic interaction terms. To demonstrate these effects, ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic resonance spectroscopies have been used to probe the exchange anisotropy in two organic magnets, one a “single-orbital” ferromagnet, the other a “multiorbital” spin-canted antiferromagnet, both of which contain a heavy-atom iodine (n = 5) substituent. While the symmetry of the singly occupied molecular orbital in both radicals precludes spin-orbit contributions from iodine to the overall exchange anisotropy, the symmetry and energetically low-lying nature of the lowest unoccupied molecular orbital in the latter allows for appreciable spin density at the site of iodine substitution and, hence, a large exchange anisotropy.