2024-04-19 12:22:18
Magnets are fascinating elements that form an integral part of our daily lives, often without us realizing it. Without them, our appliances, telephones, cars and many of the equipment used in hospitals, laboratories or industry could not function. The breadth of uses implies an enormous variety of magnets: some are permanent, because they retain their power of attraction towards metals such as iron continuously; Others, however, only have this property when they are wrapped in a coil through which an electric current circulates.
Given such a diversity of applications, research into new ferromagnetic materials does not stop. An impressive example of innovation in this field is the development of an ultrathin magnet, made up of a surface just one atom thick. This achievement has been possible thanks to the work of a large group of scientists led by Jorge Lobo Checa, researcher at the Institute of Nanoscience and Materials of Aragon (INMA), our guest today on “Talking with Scientists”.
Jorge Lobo explains that it has taken seven years of research and international collaboration to create a surface of a layer of atoms formed by an anthracene network in a honeycomb structure, on which iron atoms were distributed at distances of one nanometer. The surface, deposited on a gold base, has proven to have a defined magnetic direction and to be extremely difficult to demagnetize.
A particularly important aspect is the composition of the material, formed by a network of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and iron atoms – all abundant and inexpensive elements – as opposed to materials such as neodymium and other rare earth elements used in current devices, whose production It is extremely difficult and expensive.
Another interesting property of the developed material is its high hardness, that is, the intensity of the magnetic field necessary to reverse its magnetization. This makes it ideal for practical applications in technologies where a robust and stable magnetic field is required, such as in computer RAM or transistors.
For now, the material developed is included within basic science, since it has a Curie temperature of 35 K (-238ºC). The Curie temperature marks the limit below which a substance exhibits magnetism; Above it, the thermal agitation of the atoms disorganizes the magnetic state and the material stops behaving like a magnet. Such a low temperature makes the application of these magnetic monolayers difficult, but their development is the basis for future research that, perhaps with the association of several layers, can raise their Curie temperature to reach room temperature.
The work has been developed by an international team led by the Institute of Nanoscience and Materials of Aragon (INMA), with the collaboration of the Advanced Microscopy Laboratory (LMA) of the University of Zaragoza, the ALBA Synchrotron and the Support Services Research (SAI) of UNIZAR.
We invite you to listen to Jorge Lobo Checa, researcher at the Institute of Nanoscience and Materials of Aragon (INMA) of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) and the University of Zaragoza (UNIZAR)
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