Magnetic Anisotropy Using Powder Neutron Diffraction – senseless or ingenious

It becomes harder and harder to honor Moore’s law in PC memory devices as computer chip miniaturization becomes harder and harder. At the same time, quantum computing is about to revolutionize the world. Single molecule magnets may be at the very core of this, acting as memory storage or qubits – we just need to understand these molecules better. To achieve this, we propose a new method to quantify the vital magnetic anisotropy from powder samples and thus avoid the complicating need for huge single crystals. It requires a very intense polarized neutron beam, which the ESS in Lund will provide when operational. If successful, this project will reduce experiment times to minutes, allowing experimental determination of hundreds of samples per year, relative to the current less than a handful, and thereby completely transform the role of this approach.