Quantum phase interference in magnetic molecular clusters

The Landau Zener model has recently been used to measure very small tunnel splittings in molecular clusters of Fea, which at low temperature behaves like a nanomagnet with a spin ground state of S = 10. The observed oscillations of the tunnel splittings as a function of the magnetic field applied along the hard anisotropy axis are due to topological quantum interference of two tunnel paths of opposite windings. Transitions between quantum numbers M = - S and (S - n), with I? even or odd, revealed a parity effect which is analogous to the suppression of tunnelling predicted for half-integer spins, This observation is the first direct evidence of the topological part of the quantum spin phase (Berry or Haldane phase) in a magnetic system. We show here for the first time that the quantum interference can also be measured by AC susceptibility measurements in the thermally activated regime, (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.