Anomalous Light-Induced Spin-State Switching for Iron(II) Spin-Crossover Molecules in Direct Contact with Metal Surfaces

Light-induced spin-state switching is one of the most attractive properties of spin-crossover materials. In bulk, low-spin (LS) to high-spin (HS) conversion via the light-induced excited spin-state trapping (LIESST) effect may be achieved with a visible light, while the HS-to-LS one (reverse-LIESST) requires an excitation in the near-infrared range. Now, it is shown that those phenomena are strongly modified at the interface with a metal. Indeed, an anomalous spin conversion is presented from HS state to LS state under blue light illumination for Fe^II spin-crossover molecules that are in direct contact with metallic (111) single-crystal surfaces (copper, silver, and gold). To interpret this anomalous spin-state switching, a new mechanism is proposed for the spin conversion based on the light absorption by the substrate that can generate low energy valence photoelectrons promoting molecular vibrational excitations and subsequent spin-state switching at the molecule–metal interface.