Macroscopic measurement of resonant magnetization tunneling in high-spin molecules.

We report the observation of steps at regular intervals of magnetic field in the hysteresis loop of a macroscopic sample of oriented Mn12O12(CH3COO)16(H2O)4 crystals. The magnetic relaxation rate increases substantially when the field is tuned to a step. We propose that these effects are manifestations of thermally assisted, field-tuned resonant tunneling between quantum spin states, and attribute the observation of quantum-mechanical phenomena on a macroscopic scale to tunneling in a large (Avogadro’s) number of magnetically identical molecules. [S0031-9007(96)00131-7]