XMCD of a single layer of single molecule magnets

A detailed report on the X-ray Magnetic Circular Dichroism (XMCD) investigation of monolayers of Mn12-based single molecule magnets (SMMs) deposited on gold Au(111) is presented. A semi-quantitative analysis of data is provided in order to extract chemical and magnetic information on Mn ions, by comparison with XMCD on bulk samples. This work points that XMCD is a key-tool for the characterization of SMMs-based nanostructured systems. XMCD surface sensitivity and element-specificity will play a fundamental role in the identification of good candidates for SMMs based devices.