Magnetic Materials
Scientists moving 15-ton magnet from N.Y. to Chicago
June 17, 2013 6:20 pm | by Frank Eltman, Associated Press | News | Comments
Scientists on Long Island are preparing to move a 50-foot-wide electromagnet 3,200 miles over land and sea to its new home at the U.S. Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Illinois. The trip, starting at Brookhaven National Laboratory, is expected to take more than a month.
Scientists moving 15-ton magnet from N.Y. to Chicago
June 17, 2013 6:20 pm | by Frank Eltman, Associated Press | News | Comments
Scientists on Long Island are preparing to move a 50-foot-wide electromagnet 3,200...
A quantum simulator for magnetic materials
May 24, 2013 11:37 am | News | Comments
Physicists understand perfectly well why a fridge magnet sticks to certain metallic...
Whirlpools on the nanoscale could multiply magnetic memory
May 22, 2013 11:04 am | by Paul Preuss, Berkeley Lab | News | Comments
Magnetic memories store bits of information in discrete units whose electron spins all line up...
Surprising turns in magnetic thin films could lead to better data storage
June 18, 2013 7:19 am | by David L. Chandler, MIT News Office | News | CommentsA magnetic phenomenon newly discovered by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers could lead to much faster, denser and more energy-efficient chips for memory and computation. The findings could reduce the energy needed to store and retrieve one bit of data by a factor of 10,000.
Controlling magnetic clouds in graphene
June 12, 2013 8:14 am | News | CommentsWonder material graphene can be made magnetic, and its magnetism can be switched on and off at the press of a button. This opens a new avenue towards electronics with very low energy consumption. In a report published by a Univ. of Manchester team shows how to create elementary magnetic moments in graphene and then switch them on and off. This is the first time magnetism itself has been toggled.
New family of quasicrystals discovered
June 11, 2013 7:29 am | News | CommentsScientists at Ames Laboratory have discovered a new family of rare-earth quasicrystals using an algorithm they developed to help pinpoint them. Quasicrystalline materials may be found close to crystalline phases that contain similar atomic motifs, called crystalline approximants. And just like fishing experts know how to hook a big catch, the scientists used their knowledge to hone in on the right spot for their discovery.
Researchers discover artificial magnetic monopoles
May 31, 2013 11:13 am | News | CommentsA team of researchers from Cologne, Munich and Dresden have managed to create artificial magnetic monopoles. To do this, the scientists merged tiny magnetic whirls, so-called skyrmions. At the point of merging, the physicists were able to create a monopole, which has similar characteristics to a fundamental particle postulated by Paul Dirac in 1931. In addition to fundamental research, the monopoles may also have application potential.
An electrical switch for magnetism
May 31, 2013 8:22 am | by David L. Chandler, MIT News Office | News | CommentsResearchers have developed a new way of controlling the motion of magnetic domains—the key technology in magnetic memory systems. The new approach requires little power to write and no power to maintain the stored information, and could lead to a new generation of extremely low-power data storage. It controls magnetism by applying a voltage, rather than a magnetic field.
Physicists light “magnetic fire” to reveal energy's path
May 13, 2013 3:27 pm | News | CommentsResearch on bursts of energy within magnetic systems dates back two decades. But scientists haven't been able to measure and understand what prompts this phenomenon, known as "magnetic deflagration." New York University physicists have uncovered how energy is released and dispersed in magnetic materials in a process akin to the spread of forest fires.
New magnetic graphene may revolutionize electronics
May 10, 2013 12:44 pm | News | CommentsScientists already know that graphene has extraordinary conductive, mechanical, and optical properties. Now it is possible to give it one more property: magnetism. Researchers in Spain have used a technique that involves growing a precise graphene film over a ruthenium single crystal inside an ultra high vacuum chamber where organic semiconducting molecules are evaporated on the graphene surface.
Scientists find new magic in magnetic material
May 8, 2013 4:04 pm | News | CommentsFrom powerful computers to super-sensitive medical and environmental detectors that are faster, smaller, and use less energy—yes, we want them, but how do we get them? In research that is helping to lay the groundwork for the electronics of the future, University of Delaware scientists have confirmed the presence of a magnetic field generated by electrons which scientists had theorized existed, but that had never been proven until now.
Scientists discover 3D magnetic vortices
May 7, 2013 11:15 am | News | CommentsMagnetic vortices typically occur in nanometer-scale magnetic disks, which are studied for their potential roles in wireless data transmission. So far, magnetic vortex states have been observed only within a plane, but recently researchers in Europe have discovered 3D magnetic vortices for the first time in a specially designed stack of magnetic disks.
Scientists find way to monitor elusive collisions in space
April 24, 2013 9:10 am | News | CommentsMany collisions occur between asteroids and other objects in our solar system, but scientists are not always able to detect or track these impacts from Earth. Space scientists at the University of California, Los Angeles have now devised a way to monitor these types of collisions in interplanetary space by using a new method to determine the mass of magnetic clouds that result from the impacts.
Device launches plasma, holds it together through the air
April 16, 2013 10:12 pm | News | CommentsA University of Missouri engineer has built a system that is able to launch a ring of plasma as far as two feet. Plasma is commonly created in the laboratory using powerful electromagnets, but previous efforts to hold the super-hot material through air have been unsuccessful. The new device does this by changing how the magnetic field around the plasma is arranged.
Manipulating ultrafast spin at terahertz frequencies
April 3, 2013 10:46 am | News | CommentsThe use of femtosecond light pulses—the fastest man-made event—with photon energies ranging from X-rays (as used for instance at the HZB femto-slicing facility) to terahertz spectral range has proved to be an indispensable tool in ultrafast spin and magnetization dynamics studies. Researchers have recently demonstrated a simple but powerful way of manipulating the spins at these unprecedented speeds.
Measuring Mars: The MAVEN magnetometer takes shape
March 27, 2013 7:40 am | by Claire De Saravia, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center | News | CommentsScheduled for launch in late 2013, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution (MAVEN) mission will carry a sensitive magnetic-field instrument built and tested by a team at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Very little magnetic field traces remain on Mars, which is forcing NASA to eliminate all magnetic traces from its spacecraft. The magnetometer may help determine the history of the loss of atmospheric gases to space through time, providing answers about Mars’ climate evolution.
Magnetic nano-droplet discovery presents telecom opportunity
March 20, 2013 5:06 pm | News | CommentsA team that includes researchers from Sweden has successfully created a magnetic soliton, a spin torque-generated nano-droplet that could lead to technological innovation in such areas as mobile telecommunications. This construct was first theorized 35 years ago and scientists have long believed that they exist in magnetic environments, but until now they had never been observed
Engineers make vibration sensor in the quantum world
March 18, 2013 9:21 am | News | CommentsResearchers in France and Germany have found a way to combine both carbon nanotubes with magnetic molecules on the atomic level to build a quantum mechanical system that acts as a vibration sensor. In their experiment the researchers used a carbon nanotube that was mounted between two metal electrodes, spanned a distance of about 1 µm, and could vibrate mechanically.
KAIST develops wireless power transfer tech for high capacity transit
February 13, 2013 9:51 am | News | CommentsEngineers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and the Korea Railroad Research Institute have designed a wireless technology that can be applied to high capacity transportation systems such as railways, harbor freight, and airport transportation, and logistics. The technology supplies 60 kHz and 180 kW of power remotely to transport vehicles at a stable, constant rate.
New MRI technique has ability to scan individual cells
February 12, 2013 7:35 am | News | CommentsResearchers have recently demonstrated magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) on the molecular scale through the use of artificial atoms, diamond nanoparticles doped with nitrogen impurity. Conventional MRI responds to the magnetic fields of atomic nuclei, but this new method improves resolution nearly one million times, allowing scientists to probe very weak magnetic fields such as those generated in some biological molecules and even proteins.
Study: First evidence that magnetism helps salmon find home
February 11, 2013 9:24 am | News | CommentsWhen migrating, sockeye salmon typically swim up to 4,000 miles into the ocean and then, years later, navigate back to the upstream reaches of the rivers in which they were born to spawn their young. Scientists have long wondered how salmon find their way to their home rivers over such epic distances. A new study suggests that salmon find their home rivers by sensing the rivers' unique magnetic signature.
Magnetic nanovehicles control, target drug release in the body
January 28, 2013 10:57 am | News | CommentsResearchers in Switzerland have designed tiny vessels that are capable of releasing active agents in the body. These “nanovehicles” are made from a liposome just 100 to 200 nm in diameter. By attaching magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles to the surface, scientists are able to target the vessel, heating it up to release the drug.
Liquid crystal’s chaotic inner dynamics
January 24, 2013 4:08 pm | News | CommentsPhysicists have recently demonstrated that the application of a very strong alternating electric field to thin liquid crystal cells leads to a new distinct nonlinear dynamic effect in the response of the cells. Researchers were able to explain this result through spatio-temporal chaos theory. The finding has implications for the operation of liquid crystal devices because their operation depends on electro-optic switch phenomena.
Quantitative magneto-mechanical made possible by the Barkhausen Effect
January 17, 2013 9:45 pm | News | CommentsThe Barkhausen Effect is the noise in the magnetic output of a ferromagnet when the magnetizing force applied to it is changed. Almost 100 years after its initial discovery, a team of scientists in Alberta have harnessed this effect as a new kind of high-resolution microscopy for the insides of magnetic materials.
Chaotic “spin vortices” could lead to new computer memories
January 3, 2013 7:56 am | News | CommentsIn science, just like in life, sometimes creating the most effective organization depends on being able to handle just a bit of chaos first. Scientists at Argonne National Laboratory have used alternating magnetic fields to control the behavior of "spin vortices" trapped in small dots made from iron and nickel that can be magnetized in two separate ways.
Researchers discover a new kind of magnetism
December 20, 2012 7:39 am | by David L. Chandler, MIT News Office | News | CommentsFollowing up on earlier theoretical predictions, Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have now demonstrated experimentally the existence of a fundamentally new kind of magnetic behavior, adding to the two previously known states of magnetism.
Physicists achieve elusive “evaporative cooling” of molecules
December 19, 2012 1:55 pm | News | CommentsEvaporative cooling has long been used to cool atoms, but it has never before been done by molecules—two different atoms bonded together. Achieving a goal considered nearly impossible, JILA physicists have done this, chilling a gas of molecules to very low temperatures by adapting the familiar process by which a hot cup of coffee cools.
New insight into an intriguing state of magnetism
December 18, 2012 11:14 am | News | CommentsA team of scientists has studied magnons in a material that becomes helimagnetic below about 30 K: iron silicide doped with cobalt. They investigated how helimagnons evolve as the temperature increases, destroying the magnetic order, as well as how the magnetic phases are affected by an external magnetic field.
