Electron-phonon and magnetoelastic interactions in ferromagnetic Co[N(CN)$_2$]$_2$*

Many of the most attractive properties of multifunctional materials can be traced to the competition between charge, structure, and magnetism. The discovery that these interactions can be tuned with various physical stimuli has accelerated investigation of their behavior under extreme conditions. In this work, we combined Raman and infrared vibrational spectroscopies with complementary lattice dynamics calculations and magnetization measurements to highlight the signatures of two different coupling processes in the molecule-based magnet Co[N(CN)$_2$]$_2$. In addition to a large anisotropy, our work reveals electron-phonon coupling as a field-driven avoided crossings of the low-lying Co$^{2+}$ electronic excitation with the ligand phonons and a magnetoelastic effect that signals a flexible local CoN$_6$ environment. These findings broaden our understanding of charge-lattice-spin interactions under extreme conditions and demonstrate rich new aspects of multifunctionality in tunable molecular materials.