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Magnetic atoms of gold, silver and copper have been obtained
February 29, 2008An international team led by Physics and Chemistry teams from the Faculty of Science and Technology at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) and directed by Professor Jose Javier Saiz Garitaonandia, has achieved, by means of a controlled chemical process, that atoms of gold, silver and copper - intrinsically non-magnetic (not attracted to a magnet) - become magnetic. The article has been published in the February issue of the prestigious international magazine in nanotechnology, Nanoletters (Vol.8, No. 2, 661-667 (2008)).
According to the research, in which researchers from the UPV/EHU as well as teams from Australia and Japan have taken part, the magnetism appears reduce the dimensions of the material to nanometric dimensions and surround it with previously selected organic molecules. The magnetism of these nanoparticles is a permanent one (like iron) which, even at ambient temperature, is quite significant. This amazing behaviour has been obtained not just with gold (a phenomenon which had already been put forward as experimentally possible) but, in this research, nanoparticles of silver and copper (the atoms of which are intrinsically non-magnetic) with a size of 2 nm (0.000002 mm) have also been shown to be magnetic at ambient temperature.
The contribution of this work, part of the PhD of Ms Eider Goikolea Núñez and led by Professors Mr Jose Javier Saiz Garitaonandia and Ms Maite Insausti Peña, is not limited to obtaining these amazing magnetic nanoparticles. In fact, by means of complex techniques, using experimental systems based on particle accelerators and nuclear techniques, both in Japan and in Australia, have clearly shown for the first time that magnetism exists in atoms of gold, silver and copper, metals which, in any other condition, are intrinsically non-magnetic (a magnet does not attract them).
This discovery goes beyond the mere fact of converting non-magnetic elements to magnetic ones. These properties appear in smaller-sized particles that have never been seen in classical magnetic elements. In fact, they can be considered as the smallest magnets ever obtained. Moreover, such properties do not occur only at low temperatures but they are conserved, apparently without any degradation, at temperatures well above the ambient ones.
This work poses new questions as regards what have been the accepted up to now as the physical mechanisms associated with magnetism and opens the doors to interesting applications yet to be discovered, some of which are related to the use of magnetic nanoparticles for the diagnosis/treatment of illnesses. Likewise, this article is destined to be a point of no return for research into fundamental questions about magnetism.
Elhuyar Fundazioa
This discovery goes beyond the mere fact of converting non-magnetic elements to magnetic ones. These properties appear in smaller-sized particles that have never been seen in classical magnetic elements. In fact, they can be considered as the smallest magnets ever obtained. Moreover, such properties do not occur only at low temperatures but they are conserved, apparently without any degradation, at temperatures well above the ambient ones.
This work poses new questions as regards what have been the accepted up to now as the physical mechanisms associated with magnetism and opens the doors to interesting applications yet to be discovered, some of which are related to the use of magnetic nanoparticles for the diagnosis/treatment of illnesses. Likewise, this article is destined to be a point of no return for research into fundamental questions about magnetism.
Elhuyar Fundazioa
Magnetism News and Current Magnetism Events RSSCreating unconventional metals
The semiconductor silicon and the ferromagnet iron are the basis for much of mankind's technology, used in everything from computers to electric motors. In this week's issue of the journal Nature (August 21st) an international group of scientists, including academic and industrial researchers from the UK, USA and Lesotho, report that they have combined these elements with a small amount of another common metal, manganese, to create a new material which is neither a magnet nor an ordinary semiconductor.
New metamaterials that bend light backwards bring invisibility cloaks 1 step closer
Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have for the first time engineered 3-D materials that can reverse the natural direction of visible and near-infrared light, a development that could help form the basis for higher resolution optical imaging, nanocircuits for high-powered computers, and, to the delight of science-fiction and fantasy buffs, cloaking devices that could render objects invisible to the human eye.
Exotic Materials Using Neptunium, Plutonium Provide Insight into Superconductivity
Physicists at Rutgers and Columbia universities have gained new insight into the origins of superconductivity - a property of metals where electrical resistance vanishes - by studying exotic chemical compounds that contain neptunium and plutonium.
Room temperature superconductivity
Scientists at the University of Cambridge have for the first time identified a key component to unravelling the mystery of room temperature superconductivity, according to a paper published in today's edition of the scientific journal Nature.
A stress meter for fault zones
For the first time, scientists from Rice University, the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have measured - in the field rather than in the laboratory - how changes in stress in rocks affect changes in the speed of seismic waves at depths where earthquakes begin.
The fight for the best quantum bit (qubit)
Our results give us, for the first time, the possibility to understand the interaction between just two electrons placed next to each other in a carbon nanotube.
Study Finds New Properties in Non-Magnetic Materials
A team of Penn State researchers has shown for the first time that the entire class of non-magnetic materials, such as those used in some computer components, could have considerably more uses than scientists had thought.
Powerful superconductor is in a class all its own
Superconductivity has perplexed, astounded and inspired scientists ever since it was discovered in 1911. Now, in the latest of a century of surprises, researchers at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory at Florida State University have discovered unusual properties in a novel superconducting material that point to an entirely new kind of superconductor.
New iron-based and copper-oxide high-temperature
In the initial studies of a new class of high-temperature superconductors discovered earlier this year, research at the Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has revealed that new iron-based superconductors share similar unusual magnetic properties with previously known superconducting copper-oxide materials.
Scientists aim to unlock deep-sea 'secrets' of Earth's crust
Scientists from Durham University will use robots to explore the depths of the Atlantic Ocean to study the growth of underwater volcanoes that build the Earth's crust.
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