Ferromagnetism in one-dimensional vanadium-benzene sandwich clusters

A molecular beam of multilayer vanadium-benzene organometallic complexes Vn(C6H6)m was produced by a laser vaporization synthesis method. The magnetic moments of the complexes were measured by a molecular beam magnetic deflection technique, and were found to increase with the number of vanadium atoms in the cluster, showing that the unpaired electrons, which occupy the nonbonding dsigma orbitals localized on the metal atoms, couple ferromagnetically. These sandwich species represent a new class of one-dimensional molecular magnets in which the transition metal atoms are formally zerovalent.