Breaking through the nitrogen ceiling: Single-molecule magnets could prove useful in miniaturizing a wide variety of devices. However, their application has been severely hindered by the need to cool them to extremely low temperature using liquid helium. Guo et al. now report a dysprosium compound that manifests magnetic hysteresis at temperatures up to 80 kelvin. The principles applied to tuning the ligands in this complex could point the way toward future architectures with even higher temperature performance. Science , this issue p. 1400

Based on crystal-field theory, design strategies in consideration of local symmetry are highlighted for lanthanide-based single-molecule magnets, accompanied by practical concerns about magnetic studies and representative cases.