Substrate driven Spin Crossover in a Fe(II) scorpionate complex.

A new spin crossover complex based on a heteroscorpionate ligand was synthesized and characterized. Thin films were grown by sublimation in ultra-high vacuum on highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) and on gold single crystal Au (111), and spectroscopically characterized through X-ray absorption and by X-ray photoemission. Temperature-dependent experiments on sub-nanometric deposits demonstrated that the thermally induced spin-crossover is preserved at a sub-monolayer (0.7 ML) coverage on HOPG, while deposits with similar thickness lose the switching behaviour on Au(111) surface. The system was unresponsive to light stimuli at low temperature indepently of the used substrate.