In an atomically thin stack of semiconductors, a mechanism unseen in any natural substance causes electrons’ spins to align.

In 1966, the Japanese physicist Yosuke Nagaoka conceived of a type of magnetism produced by a seemingly unnatural dance of electrons within a hypothetical material. Now, a team of physicists has spotted a version of Nagaoka’s predictions playing out within an engineered material only six atoms thick.

The discovery, recently published in the journal Nature, marks the latest advance in the five-decade hunt for Nagaoka ferromagnetism, in which a material magnetizes as the electrons within it minimize their kinetic energy, in contrast to traditional magnets. “That’s why I’m doing this kind of research: I get to learn things that we didn’t know before, see things that we haven’t seen before,” said study coauthor Livio Ciorciaro, who completed the work while a doctoral candidate at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich’s Institute for Quantum Electronics.

  • @Mango@lemmy.world
    3•5 months ago

    This is probably a huge deal. The Hyundai uniwheel is pretty enormous. A whole new mechanical motion! New magnetism properties might open up some crazy avenues of innovation!

    • dinckel
      39•5 months ago

      I’m fascinated by people like this. Took people with incomprehensible intelligence 60 years of research, to prove theories in new research, and someone on the internet goes “egh I already knew about it”

      • @Bondrewd@lemmy.world
        7•5 months ago

        As from my standpoint its more of an anxiety that I dont have any idea what that is. Like all I see is “look I did a thing” and I have no fucking idea or physics knowledge to be able to relate.

      • TigrisMorte
        -10•5 months ago

        My criticism is of the failure of the headline. At no point was this considered a “new type”. But feel free to whine and lie about what was posted.