High-Stability Light-Element Magnetic Superatoms Determined byHund's Rule br

Achieving stable high-magnetism light-element structures at nanoscale is vital tothefield of magnetism, which has traditionally been ruled by transition-metal elements withlocalized d or f electrons. Byfirst-principles calculations, we show that superatoms made ofpure earth-abundant light elements (i.e., boron and nitrogen) exhibit desired magneticproperties that rival those of rare-earth elements, and the magnetism is dictated entirely byHund's maximum spin rule. Importantly, the chemical and structural stabilities of thesuperatoms are not jeopardized by its high spins and are in fact better than those of transition-metal-element-embedded clusters. Our work thus establishes the basic principles for designingnovel light-element, high-stability, and high-moment magnetic superatoms.