Controlling the Kondo effect of an adsorbed magnetic ion through its chemical bonding

Abstract

We report that the Kondo effect exerted by a magnetic ion depends on its chemical environment. A cobalt phthalocyanine molecule adsorbed on an Au111 surface exhibited no Kondo effect. Cutting away eight hydrogen atoms from the molecule with voltage pulses from a scanning tunneling microscope tip allowed the four orbitals of this molecule to chemically bond to the gold substrate. The localized spin was recovered in this artificial molecular structure, and a clear Kondo resonance was observed near the Fermi surface. We attribute the high Kondo temperature (more than 200 kelvin) to the small on-site Coulomb repulsion and the large half-width of the hybridized d-level.