Potentialities of Molecular Nanomagnets for Information Technologies

The possibility of tailoring their functionalities at the molecular scale makes molecular nanomagnets interesting for applications in information technologies where the race for extreme miniaturization will soon lead at requiring components of few nanometers in size. Properties like the magnetic bistability or the switchability by external stimuli actually allow one to mimic, at the molecular scale, basic operations commonly used in computers while embedding magnetic molecules in suitable electronic circuits allows the fabrication of novel spintronic devices. Even more challenging is the control and the exploitation of quantum properties in molecular spin clusters that may allow the encoding of quantum information with molecules. These concepts are substantiated by many achievements obtained in the recent years and presented in this chapter along with some perspectives and next challenges for the future.