Home > Press > Graphene reveals its magnetic personality
Abstract:
Can organic matter behave like a fridge magnet? Scientists from The University of Manchester have now shown that it can.
In a report published in Nature Physics, they used graphene, the world's thinnest and strongest material, and made it magnetic.
Graphene is a sheet of carbon atoms arranged in a chicken wire structure. In its pristine state, it exhibits no signs of the conventional magnetism usually associated with such materials as iron or nickel.
Demonstrating its remarkable properties won Manchester researchers the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010.
This latest research led by Dr Irina Grigorieva and Professor Sir Andre Geim (one of the Nobel prize recipients) could prove crucial to the future of graphene in electronics.
The Manchester researchers took nonmagnetic graphene and then either ‘peppered' it with other nonmagnetic atoms like fluorine or removed some carbon atoms from the chicken wire. The empty spaces, called vacancies, and added atoms all turned out to be magnetic, exactly like atoms of, for example, iron.
"It is like minus multiplied by minus gives you plus", says Dr Irina Grigorieva.
The researchers found that, to behave as magnetic atoms, defects must be far away from each other and their concentration should be low. If many defects are added to graphene, they reside too close and cancel each other's magnetism. In the case of vacancies, their high concentration makes graphene disintegrate.
Professor Geim said: "The observed magnetism is tiny, and even the most magnetized graphene samples would not stick to your fridge.
"However, it is important to reach clarity in what is possible for graphene and what is not. The area of magnetism in nonmagnetic materials has previously had many false positives.
"The most likely use of the found phenomenon is in spintronics. Spintronics devices are pervasive, most notably they can be found in computers' hard disks. They function due to coupling of magnetism and electric current.
"Adding this new degree of functionality can prove important for potential applications of graphene in electronics", adds Dr Grigorieva.
Full bibliographic informationNature Physics. Spin-half paramagnetism in graphene induced by point defects, by R. Nair, M. Sepioni, I-Ling Tsai, O. Lehtinen, J. Keinonen, A. Krasheninnikov, T. Thomson, A. Geim and I. Grigorieva, DOI: 10.1038/NPHYS2183
####
For more information, please click here
Contacts:
Suzanne Ross
+44 (0) 161 275 8384
Daniel Cochlin
Media Relations Officer
The University of Manchester
0161 275 8387
Copyright © AlphaGalileo
If you have a comment, please Contact us.Issuers of news releases, not 7th Wave, Inc. or Nanotechnology Now, are solely responsible for the accuracy of the content.
Related News Press |
News and information
Simulating magnetization in a Heisenberg quantum spin chain April 5th, 2024
NRL charters Navy’s quantum inertial navigation path to reduce drift April 5th, 2024
Discovery points path to flash-like memory for storing qubits: Rice find could hasten development of nonvolatile quantum memory April 5th, 2024
Graphene/ Graphite
NRL discovers two-dimensional waveguides February 16th, 2024
Spintronics
Quantum materials: Electron spin measured for the first time June 9th, 2023
Linearly assembled Ag-Cu nanoclusters: Spin transfer and distance-dependent spin coupling November 4th, 2022
Discoveries
Chemical reactions can scramble quantum information as well as black holes April 5th, 2024
New micromaterial releases nanoparticles that selectively destroy cancer cells April 5th, 2024
Utilizing palladium for addressing contact issues of buried oxide thin film transistors April 5th, 2024
Materials/Metamaterials/Magnetoresistance
Nanoscale CL thermometry with lanthanide-doped heavy-metal oxide in TEM March 8th, 2024
Focused ion beam technology: A single tool for a wide range of applications January 12th, 2024
Announcements
NRL charters Navy’s quantum inertial navigation path to reduce drift April 5th, 2024
Discovery points path to flash-like memory for storing qubits: Rice find could hasten development of nonvolatile quantum memory April 5th, 2024
The latest news from around the world, FREE | ||
Premium Products | ||
Only the news you want to read!
Learn More |
||
Full-service, expert consulting
Learn More |
||