Posted this on HL but no one responded figured I'd give it a shot here.
A team of scientists working at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Argonne National Laboratory has created a new material, called "rewritable magnetic charge ice," that permits an unprecedented degree of control over local magnetic fields and could pave the way for new computing technologies.
Current magnetic storage and recording devices, such as computer hard disks, contain nanomagnets with two polarities, each of which is used to represent either 0 or 1 — the binary digits, or bits, used in computers. A magnetic charge ice system could have eight possible configurations instead of two, resulting in denser storage capabilities or added functionalityunavailable in current technologies.
Over the past decade, scientists have been highly interested in creating, investigating and attempting to manipulate the unusual properties of "artificial spin ices," so-calledbecause the spins have a lattice structure that follows the proton positioning ordering found in water ice.
Scientists consider artificial spin ices to be scientific playgrounds, where the mysteries of magnetism might be explored andrevealed. However, in the past, researchers have been frustrated in their attempts to achieve global and local control of spin-ice magnetic charges.
To overcome this challenge, Xiao and his colleagues decoupled the lattice structure of magnetic spins and the magnetic charges. The scientists used a bi-axis vector magnet to precisely and conveniently tune the magnetic charge ice to any of eight possible charge configurations. They then used a magnetic force microscope to demonstrate the material's local write-read-erasemultifunctionality at room temperature.
For example, using a specially developed patterning technique, they wrote the word "ICE" on the material in a physical space 10 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair.
Scientists create 'magnetic charge ice' | Argonne National Laboratory
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A team of scientists working at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Argonne National Laboratory has created a new material, called "rewritable magnetic charge ice," that permits an unprecedented degree of control over local magnetic fields and could pave the way for new computing technologies.
Current magnetic storage and recording devices, such as computer hard disks, contain nanomagnets with two polarities, each of which is used to represent either 0 or 1 — the binary digits, or bits, used in computers. A magnetic charge ice system could have eight possible configurations instead of two, resulting in denser storage capabilities or added functionalityunavailable in current technologies.
Over the past decade, scientists have been highly interested in creating, investigating and attempting to manipulate the unusual properties of "artificial spin ices," so-calledbecause the spins have a lattice structure that follows the proton positioning ordering found in water ice.
Scientists consider artificial spin ices to be scientific playgrounds, where the mysteries of magnetism might be explored andrevealed. However, in the past, researchers have been frustrated in their attempts to achieve global and local control of spin-ice magnetic charges.
To overcome this challenge, Xiao and his colleagues decoupled the lattice structure of magnetic spins and the magnetic charges. The scientists used a bi-axis vector magnet to precisely and conveniently tune the magnetic charge ice to any of eight possible charge configurations. They then used a magnetic force microscope to demonstrate the material's local write-read-erasemultifunctionality at room temperature.
For example, using a specially developed patterning technique, they wrote the word "ICE" on the material in a physical space 10 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair.
Scientists create 'magnetic charge ice' | Argonne National Laboratory
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