The images revealed that the magnetic product the HU scientists were studying just maintained magnetism on its edge– in fact only within 10 nanometers of the edge (remember a human hair is around 100,000 nanometers). Their outcomes were just recently published in the distinguished journal Nano Letters.
Left to right: HUs Avia Noah and Yonathan Anahory. Credit: Hebrew University
“In todays technological race to make every part smaller sized and more energy effective, effort is focused towards little magnets with different shapes,” Anahory shared. The new edge magnetism provides the possibility of making long wire magnets just 10 nanometers thick, which might curve into any shape.
The actual discovery of edge magnetism was somewhat serendipitous: Anahory decided to have a look at a new magnetic nano-material (CGT) produced by his colleague at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, in Spain. Further, the phenomena themselves will be at the heart of even more advanced technologies as edge magnetism has demonstrated.
Recommendation: “Interior and Edge Magnetization in Thin Exfoliated CrGeTe3 Films” by Avia Noah, Hen Alpern, Sourabh Singh, Alon Gutfreund, Gilad Zisman, Tomer D. Feld, Atzmon Vakahi, Sergei Remennik, Yossi Paltiel, Martin Emile Huber, Victor Barrena, Hermann Suderow, Hadar Steinberg, Oded Millo and Yonathan Anahory, 10 March 2022, Nano Letters.DOI: 10.1021/ acs.nanolett.1 c04665.
The new edge magnetism provides the possibility of making long wire magnets just 10 nanometers thick, which could curve into any shape. The actual discovery of edge magnetism was rather serendipitous: Anahory decided to have a look at a new magnetic nano-material (CGT) produced by his coworker at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, in Spain. The discovery ultimately relied on images produced by a brand-new type of magnetic microscopy established in Israel, which can measure the magnetic field of a single electron. Even more, the phenomena themselves will be at the heart of even more sophisticated technologies as edge magnetism has actually demonstrated.
Illustration of edge magnetism discovered in CrGeTe3 using nanoscale magnetic microscopy. Credit: Ori Lerman
Dealing with the smallest magnets, Hebrew University finds a new magnetic phenomenon with industrial potential.
For physicists, checking out the world of the really, really small is a wonderland. Totally brand-new and unforeseen phenomena are discovered in the nanoscale, where materials as thin as 100 atoms are checked out. Here, nature ceases to behave in a manner that is predictable by the macroscopic law of physics, unlike what goes on worldwide around us or out in the cosmos.
Dr. Yonathan Anahory at Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU)s Racah Institute of Physics led the group of scientists, which included HU doctoral trainee Avia Noah. He spoke of his awe when taking a look at images of the magnetism produced by nano-magnets, “it was the very first time we saw a magnet behaving this way,” as he explained the images that exposed the phenomenon of “edge magnetism.”