Wonder material graphene has once again shown its remarkable versatility as Manchester scientists have discovered it can be made magnetic at the flick of a switch.
The astonishing discovery, led by Dr Irina Grigorieva from The University of Manchester, paves the way for the use of low energy electronics for a greener way of living.
Modern day life would be unimaginable without the use of magnets, with gadgets such as hard disks, memory chips and sensors becoming staple features of day-to-day life.
Dr Grigorieva explains: “This breakthrough allows us to work towards transistor-like devices in which information is written down by switching graphene between its magnetic and non-magnetic states.
“These states can be read out either in the conventional manner by pushing an electric current through or, even better, by using a spin flow. Such transistors have been a holy grail of spintronics.”
This is the first time magnetism itself has been toggled rather than the direction being reversed, a huge advancement as up until now spintronics has so far been disappointing in its inability to switch between the north and south directions in a manner similar to that used in modern transistors.
Dr Rahul Nair, who led the experimental effort, said: “Previously, one could only change a direction in which a magnet is magnetized from north to south. Now we can switch on and off the magnetism entirely.
“Graphene already attracts interest in terms of spintronics applications, and I hope that the latest discovery will make it a frontrunner.”
Graphene is being hailed as a miracle material that will change the course of technology over the coming years and has already made advances in green energy supplies, crime prevention and even cosmetics.
Picture courtesy of J. Paxon Reyes via Flickr, with thanks
For more on this story and many others, follow Mancunian Matters on Twitter and Facebook.
