Working with the smallest magnets, the Hebrew University discovered a new magnetic phenomenon with industrial potential.
For physicists, exploring very, very small regions is a wonderful country. Completely new and unexpected phenomena have been discovered on the nanoscale, where liquids like 100 atoms have been discovered. Here, nature stops behaving in ways that can be inferred from the macroscopic laws of physics, in contrast to what happens around us or in the cosmic world.
Dr. Jonathan Anahori of the Rakah Institute of Physics at the Hebrew University (HU) in Jerusalem led a team of researchers, including Avia Noah, a HU doctoral student. He said he was surprised to see images of magnetism generated by nano-magnets, “this is the first time we’ve seen a magnet behave this way,” because he described images that reflect the phenomenon of “edge magnetism”.
Figures show that the magnetic material that HU researchers were studying retained magnetism only at its edges – actually only within 10 nanometers of the edges (remember a human hair is about 100,000 nanometers). Their results were recently published in the prestigious journal Nano Letters.
These nano-effects, though very small, can actually be widely applied in our daily lives. “In today’s technological race, efforts are focused on smaller magnets of different sizes to make each component smaller and more energy efficient,” Anahori shared. The new edge magnetism gives the possibility of making long wire magnets only 10 nanometers thick, which can be curved in any shape. “This could revolutionize the way we build Spintronics devices,” adds Anahori, adding that the next generation of nano-electronic devices will consume less energy and increase memory and processing capacity.
The actual discovery of edge magnetism was somewhat ruthless: Anahori decided to see a new magnetic nano-material (CGT) produced by his colleague at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid in Spain. The discovery ultimately relies on images produced by a new type of magnetic microscopy made in Israel, which can measure the magnetic field of a single electron. Discovering new phenomena depends on highly sophisticated new technology. Further, the phenomenon itself will be at the center of more advanced technology as edge magnetism has demonstrated.
Dr. Jonathan Anahori of the Rakah Institute of Physics at the Hebrew University (HU) in Jerusalem led the research team, which also included Avia Noah, a HU doctoral student. He said he was surprised to see images of magnetism generated by nanomagnets, “this is the first time we’ve seen a magnet behave this way,” because he described the images that reveal the phenomenon of “edge magnetism”.
Figures show that the magnetic element that HU researchers were studying retained magnetism only at its edges – actually only within 10 nanometers of the edges (remember that a human hair is about 100,000 nanometers). Their results have been published in the journal Nano Letters.
These nano-effects, though very small, can actually be widely applied in our daily lives. “In today’s technological race, efforts are focused on smaller magnets of different sizes to make each component smaller and more energy efficient,” Anahori shared. The new edge magnetism gives the possibility of making long wire magnets only 10 nanometers thick, which can be curved in any shape. “This could revolutionize the way we make spintronics devices,” Anahori added, noting that the next generation of nano-electronic devices will reduce power consumption and increase memory and processing capacity.
The actual discovery of edge magnetism was somewhat ruthless: Anahori decided to see a new magnetic nano-material (CGT) produced by his colleague at the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid in Spain. The discovery ultimately relies on images produced by a new type of magnetic microscopy made in Israel, which can measure the magnetic field of a single electron. Discovering new phenomena depends on highly sophisticated new technology. Further, the phenomenon itself will be at the center of more advanced technology as edge magnetism has demonstrated.