'Magnetic electricity' discovered

[FloatingFatMan]

Researchers have discovered a magnetic equivalent to electricity: single magnetic charges that can behave and interact like electrical ones.

The work is the first to make use of the magnetic monopoles that exist in special crystals known as spin ice.

Writing in Nature journal, a team showed that monopoles gather to form a "magnetic current" like electricity.

The phenomenon, dubbed "magnetricity", could be used in magnetic storage or in computing.

Magnetic monopoles were first predicted to exist over a century ago, as a perfect analogue to electric charges.

Although there are protons and electrons with net positive and negative electric charges, there were no particles in existence which carry magnetic charges. Rather, every magnet has a "north" and "south" pole.

Current event

In September this year, two research groups independently reported the existence of monopoles - "particles" which carry an overall magnetic charge. But they exist only in the spin ice crystals.

These crystals are made up of pyramids of charged atoms, or ions, arranged in such a way that when cooled to exceptionally low temperatures, the materials show tiny, discrete packets of magnetic charge.

The loops of a magnetic field can be seen in the arrangement of iron filings

Now one of those teams has gone on to show that these "quasi-particles" of magnetic charge can move together, forming a magnetic current just like the electric current formed by moving electrons.

They did so by using sub-atomic particles called muons, created at the Science and Technology Facilities Council's (STFC) ISIS neutron and muon source near Oxford.

The muons decay millionths of a second after their production into other sub-atomic particles. But these resulting particles "remember" the direction of the muons.

The team, led by Stephen Bramwell, from the London Centre for Nanotechnology, implanted these muons into spin ice to demonstrate how the magnetic monopoles moved around.

They showed that when the spin ice was placed in a magnetic field, the monopoles piled up on one side - just like electrons would pile up when placed in an electric field.

Professor Bramwell told BBC News that the development is unlikely to catch on as a means of providing energy, not least because the particles travel only inside spin ices.

"We're not going to be seeing a magnetic light bulb or anything like that," he said.

But by engineering different spin ice materials to modify the ways monopoles move through them, the materials might in future be used in "magnetic memory" storage devices or in spintronics - a field which could boost future computing power.

Source - BBC

[LOC Veteran]

I must have been out of college way to long, I thought monopoles were "bad"? :|

[rob.derosa]

I must have been out of college way to long, I thought monopoles were "bad"? :|

Nothing wrong with them.. just some speculate they shouldn't exist.

[lamminium]

I only know that we were puzzled why magnetic monopoles were never found because our theory doesn't forbid its existence.

Seems the physics course will be changing soon...

[Growled Member]

Interesting stuff. I'd imagine we are years away from using this in any commercial products, though.

[The Rev]

Hmm... Honestly, I thought this was a given.... I mean, magnetism is indeed energy.... And energy can be used to create electricity.... So ya.... sounds like a big "Duh" to me... I guess the key would be figuring out how to make energy that can be used to power things out of it, w/o expending more energy than you're getting out of it. That's my take, but I'm not a master of physics so.... *shrugs*

[Athlonite]

next we'll be using a sigularity to power the earth

[Fedr0]

Very interesting read, thanks for the link. :)

[LOC Veteran]

next we'll be using a sigularity to power the earth

Well if the Romulans can use them to power their starships....oh god I'm a nerd.

[Linkinfamous]

Hmm... Honestly, I thought this was a given.... I mean, magnetism is indeed energy.... And energy can be used to create electricity.... So ya.... sounds like a big "Duh" to me... I guess the key would be figuring out how to make energy that can be used to power things out of it, w/o expending more energy than you're getting out of it. That's my take, but I'm not a master of physics so.... *shrugs*

This is about the creation of magnetic currents. It's not a big "duh" in any way shape or form. A consequence of div B = 0, as any undergraduate physics student will tell you, is that they can't exist.

We've done electric charge currents (Electricity) for centuries, spin currents for a couple of decades, but magnetic currents are new. We haven't ever had monopoles to work with before.

Now, these aren't true monopoles, of course. They're monopole-like quasiparticles that you can get to develop in certain systems, but it's still cool stuff.