Revealing light-induced changes in octacyanotungstate photomagnets

Photo-switchable magnets offer unique magnetic memory storage capabilities. However, their technological application is hampered by low operating temperatures, with the best system to date showing photomagnetic switching only below 93 K. Further improvement of such photomagnetic systems is limited by poor understanding of the photoswitching mechanism in cyanometallate assemblies. Previous photocrystallographic studies for octacyanomolybdate(IV) led to the identification of light-induced Mo-CN bond breakage as the main cause of photomagnetic activity, but such behavior was never observed for octacyanotungstate(IV) compounds in the solid. The main difficulty in such studies is the polycrystalline nature of octacyanotungstate(IV) photomagnets. The aim of this proposal is to investigate structural changes with synchrotron powder X-ray diffraction, for a new photomagnetic coordination polymers, which exhibit light-induced magnetic ordering at record temperatures up to 110 K.