Graphite magnets get ready for applications
Date: Tuesday, July 27, 2004 @ 21:48:24 GMT
Topic: Science


From the PhysicsWeb site, Jul 26, 2004: Physicists in Uruguay and Brazil have succeeded in synthesising large quantities of magnetic graphite for the first time. The material made by Álvaro Mombrú and colleagues at the Universidad de la República in Montevideo and the Universidad Federal de São Carlos has the advantage of remaining magnetic at room temperature (H Pardo et al. 2004 arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0407303). Magnetic carbon could be used to make inexpensive, metal-free magnets for applications in medicine and biology, nanotechnology and telecommunications.



Graphite and other forms of carbon can have ferromagnetic properties. However, the effects are weak, and usually only seen at very low temperatures, so physicists are not sure if the magnetism is due to tiny amounts of iron-rich impurities, or if it is an intrinsic property of the carbon...

Mombrú believes that magnetic impurities are not responsible for the magnetization because iron concentrations of nearly 2000 parts per million (ppm) would be required to produce the values observed, yet they only measured around 60 ppm of iron.

Read the whole article at: http://physicsweb.org/article





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