Abstract
Unlocking the potential of topological order in many-body spin systems has been a key goal in quantum materials research. Despite extensive efforts, the quest for a versatile platform enabling site-selective spin manipulation, essential for tuning and probing diverse topological phases, has persisted. Here we utilize on-surface synthesis to construct spin-1/2 alternating-exchange Heisenberg chains by covalently linking Clar’s goblets—nanographenes each hosting two antiferromagnetically coupled spins. Using scanning tunnelling microscopy, we exert atomic-scale control over chain lengths, parities and exchange-coupling terminations, and probe their magnetic response via inelastic tunnelling spectroscopy. Our investigation confirms the gapped nature of bulk excitations in the chains, known as triplons. Their dispersion relation is extracted from the spatial variation of tunnelling spectral amplitudes. Depending on the parity and termination of chains, we observe varying numbers of in-gap spin-1/2 edge excitations, reflecting the degeneracy of distinct topological ground states in the thermodynamic limit. By monitoring interactions between these edge spins, we identify the exponential decay of spin correlations. Our findings present a phase-controlled many-body platform, opening avenues toward spin-based quantum devices.
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Data availability
The data that support the findings of this study are available on the Materials Cloud platform via https://doi.org/10.24435/materialscloud:x8-7y (ref. 60).
Code availability
All relevant codes are available on the Materials Cloud platform via https://doi.org/10.24435/materialscloud:x8-7y (ref. 60).
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Acknowledgements
We thank S. Mishra for critical reading of the manuscript. This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grant numbers 212875 (R.F.), CRSII5_205987 (P.R., J.F.-R.)), an ERC Consolidator grant (T2DCP, grant number 819698 (X.F.)), the Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed) (X.F.), H2020-EU.1.2.2.-FET Proactive Grant (LIGHT-CAP, 101017821 (X.F.)), the DFG-SNSF Joint Switzerland-German Research Project (EnhanTopo, number 429265950 (P.R., X.F.)), the European Union (grant FUNLAYERS-101079184 (J.F.-R., X.F.)), the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (grant number PTDC/FIS-MAC/2045/2021 (J.F.-R.)), Generalitat Valenciana (grant number Prometeo2021/017 (J.F.-R.)), MICIN-Spain (grant numbers PID2019-109539GB-C41 and PID2022-141712NB-C22 (J.F.-R.)) and the Advanced Materials programme supported by MCIN with funding from European Union NextGenerationEU (PRTR-C17.I1 (J.F.-R.)). We also greatly appreciate financial support from the Werner Siemens Foundation (CarboQuant (R.F., O.G.)).
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X.F., P.R. and R.F. conceived the project. J.-J.Z. and L.Y. synthesized and characterized the precursor molecules in solution, with supervision provided by J.M. C.Z. and L.Y. performed the on-surface synthesis. C.Z. performed the STM/STS measurements and analysed the data. G.C., J.C.G.H. and J.F.-R. performed the CAS, ED and DMRG calculations. C.Z., G.C., O.G., P.R., J.F.-R. and R.F. interpreted the Fourier analysis to triplon excitation. C.Z., G.C., J.F.-R. and R.F. wrote the manuscript. All authors discussed the results.
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Nature Nanotechnology thanks David Serrate, Ping Yu and Fangzhou Zhao for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
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Extended data
Extended Data Fig. 1 On-surface synthesis.
Schematic drawing for the on-surface synthesis of goblet chains from the precursor to the ribbon.
Extended Data Fig. 2 Exchange couplings involved in the goblet chain system.
a, Topographic image of a modified mirror-symmetric dimer containing only the nearest inter-goblet coupling Jinter. Vbias = 100 mV, Iset = 500 pA. The dI/dV spectra taken at different spin sites are displayed in the right panel (Iset = 500 pA), with the averaged d2I/dV 2 spectrum represented as a light brown curve. b, Topographic image of a modified dimer containing only the second nearest inter-goblet coupling Jnn. Vbias = − 50 mV, Iset = 500 pA. The dI/dV spectra taken at different spin sites are displayed in the right panel (Iset = 500 pA). c, Topographic image of a modified dimer containing only the third nearest inter-goblet coupling Jnnn. Vbias = − 50 mV, Iset = 500 pA. The dI/dV spectra taken at various spin sites are displayed in the right panel (Iset = 800 pA). d, Topographic image of an engineered dimer containing Jintra, Jnn, and Jnnn. Vbias = − 50 mV, Iset = 300 pA. The corresponding dI/dV spectra are also shown in the right panel, with the averaged d2I/dV 2 spectrum of 3 and 4 represented as a light brown curve. All white scale bars denote 0.5 nm. The background spectra taken on the Au(111) substrate are shown as references. All dI/dV spectra are taken with Vrms = 2 mV.
Extended Data Fig. 3 CAS calculation for determining intra/inter-goblet exchange couplings.
a, Excitation energy from the singlet ground state to the triplet excited states of a goblet monomer, as a function of U/t1, for t3 = 0.07t1, where U is the on-site Coulomb repulsion, t1 = 2.7 eV is the hopping parameter for the nearest carbon sites and t3 is the third-neighbour hopping. The parameters that fit the experimental results are found to be U/t1 ~ 0.7. b, Eigenvalues of the ground and the first several excited states for a goblet monomer using the optimized parameters. c-f, Eigenvalues of the ground and the first several excited states for modified goblet dimers having only J2 coupling (inversion symmetric), J2 coupling (mirror symmetric), Jnn coupling, and Jnnn coupling, respectively.
Extended Data Fig. 4 Calculated eigenstate energies by exact diagonalization of chains shown in Fig. 2 in the main text.
a, J1-terminated chain with L = 22. b, J2-terminated chain with L = 20.
Extended Data Fig. 5 Calculated excitation energies and probabilities from the ground state to various triplon modes.
Calculated excitation energies and probabilities from the ground state to various triplon modes of an L = 20 odd-Haldane chain through single-site excitation. Different α values are considered (α = J1/J2). The probability is obtained by summing up the corresponding spin spectral weight of all sites along the chain and is represented by the size of the marker. The one-triplon branch is roughly symmetric around J2 and the bandwidth increases with J1, suggesting that a non-zero J1 is the origin of the dispersive triplon.
Extended Data Fig. 6 Bulk and edge dI/dV spectra, for chains with different lengths L.
Bulk (average of spin sites No. L/2 and No. L/2 + 1 in the middle) and edge (average of spin sites No. 1 and No. L at the ends) dI/dV spectra, for chains with different lengths L. For all the dI/dV spectra: Iset = 500 pA, Vrms = 2 mV. The corresponding d2I/dV 2 are also shown aside. Detailed experimental data for chains with L = 4–12, 16, 24 and 26 are in Supplementary Fig. 6, for L = 14 and 18 in Extended Data Fig. 7, for L = 28 in Supplementary Fig. 8, and for L = 40 in Supplementary Fig. 5.
Extended Data Fig. 7 Selective spin activation along a chain.
a-e, Schematic illustration, STM topographic image, and dI/dV spectra taken on activated spin sites during the step-by-step activation described in Fig. 4e-g of the main text. The background spectra taken on the Au substrate are shown by grey curves. All STM images are taken with a CO-functionalized tip: Vbias = − 100 mV, Iset = 100 pA. All spectra are taken with: Iset = 500 pA, Vrms = 2 mV. f and g, ZBC extracted from \(7+1/2\) and \(8+1/2\) chains, which have mixed terminations.
Extended Data Fig. 8 Comparison between dehydrogenative and hydrogenative passivation of spin sites.
a, Schematic illustration of different engineering methods for spin manipulation. b and c, Schematic illustration and topographic image of a dehydrogenative passivated goblet dimer containing only J2. Vbias = 100 mV, Iset = 500 pA. d and e, Schematic illustration and topographic image of a hydrogenative passivated goblet dimer containing only J2. Vbias = − 45 mV, Iset = 500 pA. f, The corresponding dI/dV spectra taken in c and e. Iset = 800 pA. The averaged d2I/dV2 spectra of 1 (5) and 2 (6) are shown in the bottom panel. All dI/dV spectra are taken with Vrms = 2 mV. Scale bars denote 0.5 nm.
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Supplementary Notes containing Supplementary Figs. 1–22 with related discussions.
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Zhao, C., Catarina, G., Zhang, JJ. et al. Tunable topological phases in nanographene-based spin-1/2 alternating-exchange Heisenberg chains. Nat. Nanotechnol. 19, 1789–1795 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-024-01805-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41565-024-01805-z
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