LAUSR

We present the laser-induced ultrafast spin and rotational dynamics in a cobalt trimer cation cluster. With the help of an attached CO ligand which lowers the high symmetry of the cluster, a local spin switch within around 500 fs is achieved. Furthermore, by including an additional degree of freedom in our calculations, i.e., molecular rotation, we investigate the possibility of laser-induced ultrafast molecular rotational control in both a model system and our studied realistic cluster. The results indicate that both spin and molecular rotation can be manipulated with ultrashort laser pulses at subpicosecond timescales, a fact which provides significant theoretical guidance for the design of spin logic nanodevices and sheds some light on the application-oriented path for driving molecular directional motions.