Magnetic anisotropy is one of the most important merits for magnetic materials in various practical applications such as magnetic memory and sensor. At present, the study on magnetic anisotropy and magnetic critical phenomena of low-dimensional spin systems has attracted great interest in condensed matter physics.

With the financial support of the “973 Project” and the National Natural Science Foundation (NNSF)，Prof. HE Zhangzhen and his colleagues at the State Key Laboratory of Structural Chemistry, Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter(FJIRSM) explored new magnetic materials using the block-assembly method based on molecular engineering, and obtains single crystals of large sizes using a special growth process. Furthermore, they investigate magnetic behaviors of the grown crystals in collaboration with Prof. Y. Ueda in ISSP, The University of Tokyo. Recently, a two-dimensional spin system Cu5V2O10 with large magnetic anisotropy was found in the CuO-V2O5 binary system and the interesting results were published in Journal of American Chemical Society as Communication (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2011, 133, 1298-1300).

In addition,　Prof. HE Zhangzhen and his colleagues have also studied the systems of other transition metal vanadate MO-V2O5 (M = Cu, Ni, Co, Fe, Mn), and successfully developed a variety of new magnetic materials with large magnetic anisotropy, the results were seen on J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2009, 131,7554-7555; Phys. Rev. B, 2008, 78, 212410 (1-4); 2009, 79, 092404(1-4). These exciting works would lay the foundation for further study on the magnetic anisotropy of low-dimensional magnetic materials and correlated magnetic critical phenomena.