Steps in the hysteresis of a high spin molecule

Abstract

We report the first observation of steps in the hysteresis loop of a high¿spin molecular magnet. We propose that the steps, which occur every 0.46 T, are due to thermally assisted resonant tunneling between different quantum spin states. Magnetic relaxation increases dramatically when the field is in the neighborhood of a step. A simple model accounts for the observations and predicts a value for the anisotropy barrier consistent with that inferred from the superparamagnetic blocking temperature