Geometric Phases in Single Molecule Magnets

Abstract

The characterization of the material properties of Single Molecule Magnets (SMMs) has grown in importance over the last few decades with the rise of novel applications such as high-density magnetic storage and quantum computation. Many of the applications require the probing of SMMs with spectroscopic methods that make use of electromagnetic radiation. The interaction with these timedependent fields leads to energy shifts, which can be attributed to the geometric phase acquired by the system or the Bloch-Siegert shift. We model an SMM by a giant spin Hamiltonian, and use Floquet perturbation theory to find the geometric phase shifts. The locations where the phase shift between two levels is zero is useful for performing accurate spectroscopies, whereas the regions where relative phase differences exist are useful in applications like quantum computing. Using the same giant spin Hamiltonian, we can use Floquet theory and Salwen perturbation theory to determine the Bloch-Siegert shift and derive a modified version of the Rabi formula for transition probabilities between the energy states Eα → Eα±1, Eα → Eα±3, and Eα → Eα±5, where α is the index of an arbitrary initial state. The shifted eigenvalues and modified transition probabilities can be useful in spectroscopies where accurate values for the energy-splitting between magnetic states needs to be determined.