Latest Magnetism Stories

  Neutron scattering studies of "cobalt blue," a compound prized by artists for its lustrous blue hue, are revealing unique magnetic characteristics that could answer questions about mysterious properties in other materials. Experiments at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) and High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR), both located at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, indicate novel behaviors in the antiferromagnetic material cobalt aluminum oxide, -- CoAl2O4, or...

In their search for smaller, faster information-storage devices, physicists have been exploring ways to encode magnetic data using electric fields. One advantage of this voltage-induced magnet control is that less power is needed to encode information than in a traditional system. But earlier this year, researchers reported that a key element of magnetization called coercivity is not controlled by voltage at all, but rather by an unfortunate byproduct of applying electricity to a material –...

National High Magnetic Field Laboratory moves closer to 100-tesla mark Researchers at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory’s Pulsed Field Facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory have set a new world record for the strongest magnetic field produced by a nondestructive magnet. The scientists achieved a field of 92.5 tesla on Thursday, August 18, taking back a record that had been held by a team of German scientists and then, the following day, surpassed their achievement with...

Nature Materials: new multiferroic material developed An international team of researchers from France and Germany has developed a new material which is the first to react magnetically to electrical fields at room temperature. Previously this was only at all possible at extremely low and unpractical temperatures. Electric fields are technically much easier and cheaper to produce than magnetic fields for which you need power guzzling coils. The researchers have now found a way to control...

HZB scientists observe how a material at room temperature exhibits a unique property – a 'multiferroic' material with potential uses for cheap and quick data storage. Researchers at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) in close collaboration with colleagues in France and UK, have engineered a material that exhibits a rare and versatile trait in magnetism at room temperature. It’s called a “multiferroic,” and it means that the material has properties allowing it to be both electrically...

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 18, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Sono Resources Inc. (OTCQB-SRCI; the "Company" or "Sono") has reviewed updated data from the Company's high resolution airborne magnetics survey, presently in the final stages of completion. The Company expects to achieve well-defined drill targets from this new data. Through the review of a combination of Sono's high-resolution aeromagnetic survey, available government ground magnetic survey information, geophysical data and...

Computer files that allow us to watch videos, store pictures, and edit all kinds of media formats are nothing else but streams of "0" and "1" digital data, that is, bits and bytes. Modern computing technology is based on our ability to write, store, and retrieve digital information as efficiently as possible. In a computer hard disk, this is achieved in practice by writing information on a thin magnetic layer, where magnetic domains pointing "up" represent a...

Physicists from Juelich, Kiel and Hamburg identify an atomic-scale magnetic lattice of cycloidal vortices in a thin metal filmPhysicists at Forschungszentrum Jülich and the universities of Kiel and Hamburg are the first to discover a regular lattice of stable magnetic skyrmions "“ radial spiral structures made up of atomic-scale spins "“ on a surface instead of in bulk materials. Such tiny formations could one day form the basis of a new generation of smaller and more efficient data...

Hailed as the new "wonder material," graphene is being tapped by an international research team to help overcome issues associated with increasing the storage density and speed of electronic memory devices.Electronic memory devices, which store information, are increasingly expected to provide not only greater storage density, but also faster access to information. As storage density increases, however, power consumption and unwanted heat generation also increase, and the fidelity...

New multiferroic mechanism could lead to next-generation memory and sensing devicesResearchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have observed a new way that magnetic and electric properties "” which have a long history of ignoring and counteracting each other "” can coexist in a special class of metals. These materials, known as multiferroics, could serve as the basis for the next generation of faster and energy-efficient logic, memory, and sensing...