Researchers Discover a Way to Manipulate Magnetic Fields in Ferrimagnets
Researchers Discover a Way to Manipulate Magnetic Fields in Ferrimagnets
If you’re familiar with our products, you likely know that a majority of our magnets are made of ferromagnetic materials. This includes substances such as iron, cobalt, nickel, and compounds of rare earth metals. In these materials, the atomic fields align themselves parallel with externally applied fields, creating a total magnetic field much greater than the applied field. On the other hand, you may not be familiar with ferrimagnetic materials. The atoms in these materials are not aligned in just one direction — while some atoms align in one direction, others point in the opposite direction. The magnetic field of ferrimagnetic materials depends on the balance between these opposing atomic fields. This also means they can produce faster and larger data storage or logic circuits than today’s ferromagnets. Researchers have now discovered a way to switch the orientation of ferrimagnets to accomplish that.
A Brief Summary of the Study
Through a collaboration between researchers at MIT and others in Minnesota, Germany, Spain, and Korea, they found a way to rapidly switch the polarity of a ferrimagnet 180 degrees. They accomplished this by using a film composed of gadolinium cobalt, a rare earth transition metal. In this film, the two elements form interlocking atom lattices — the gadolinium points one way, while the cobalt atoms align in the opposite direction. The balance between these two elements determines the overall magnetization of the film.Then, by using a voltage to split water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen along the film’s surface, the hydrogen atoms’ nuclei alter the balance of the magnetic orientation, flipping it 180 degrees. According to Geoffrey Beach, co-director of MIT’s Materials Research Laboratory, this is an energy-efficient process since the change is accomplished through a change of voltage. You can find the full study in this article published by Nature Nanotechnology.
