Magnetic properties of a classical XY spin dimer in a “planar” magnetic field

Abstract Single-molecule magnetism originates from the strong intra-molecular magnetic coupling of a small number of interacting spins. Such spins generally interact very weakly with the neighboring spins in the other molecules of the compound, therefore, inter-molecular spin couplings are negligible. In certain cases the number of magnetically coupled spins is as small as a dimer, a system that can be considered the smallest nanomagnet capable of storing non-trivial magnetic information on the molecular level. Additional interesting patterns arise if the spin motion is confined to a two-dimensional space. In such a scenario, clusters consisting of spins with large-spin values are particularly attractive since their magnetic interactions can be described well in terms of classical Heisenberg XY spins. In this work we calculate exactly the magnetic properties of a nanomagnetic dimer of classical XY spins in a “planar” external magnetic field. The problem is solved by employing a mathematical approach whose idea is the introduction of auxiliary spin variables into the starting expression of the partition function. Results for the total internal energy, total magnetic moment, spin–spin correlation function and zero-field magnetic susceptibility can serve as a basis to understand the magnetic properties of large-spin dimer building blocks.