Quantum dynamics and magnetoeletric coupling in molecular materials

Materials with magnetoelectric (ME) coupling exhibit behavior wherein applied electric field controls the magnetization or applied magnetic field controls the electric polarization. These have many potential and realized applications including electric control of spin qubits or coupling between qubits in molecular magnets for sensing or computing. I will review our progress in coupling electric fields to the overall spin state S of spin crossover materials, and to the spin projection Sz in materials with cascades of field-induced level crossings. Such ME coupling can originate from the symmetry-breaking of a cluster of spins that allows spatial inversion symmetry breaking, or else from the coupling of the magnetic Hamiltonian to the lattice of a polar crystal. In the process of conducting such magnetic and electric measurements in high fields we have also uncovered quantum dynamic behavior in the pulsed field magnetization of molecular magnets. We will compare our data on an antiferromagnetic molecule to Landau-Zener models.