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Carbon Magnets At Room Temperature
Bolie writes: "Trying to make high temperature super conductors yielded an unexpected result. The pure carbon bucky ball material was put under pressure to make sheets. That worked. Picture microscopic bubble pack. But the result was a sheet that was magnetic at room temperature. It has not escaped the attention of the discoverer, Tatiana Makarova, that this might be useful for a non-metallic computer memory. The material is also lighter than metals, flexible and transparent. Lasers anyone?"
First off, I find it hilarious what we physicists end up naming different molecules and ensemble configurations.
Once again it goes to show that even though we're trying to do the right thing in the lab, sometimes bad things happen, but typically we're able to come out with something in the experiment that is actually worthwhile. Crazy how that works eh?
Nonetheless, there is some pretty cool research at the University of Virginia in bucky ball related research. If anyone is interested, check out http://www.phys.virginia.edu
I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.
The interesting thing about buckyballs is that their bonding is somewhat of a cross between the two: it is a polyaromatic (like graphite) but it is a molecular solid (similar to, but not exactly like, diamond).
Religion is the opiate of the masses. The wealthy smoke the real stuff.
Has anyone discovered a way to reliably make large quantities of Buckyballs? Last time I looked into it, it was very hard... They were very expensive and only available in small quantities for experimentation.
- US National Labs rotating Java model (doesn't show the bonds though).
- loads of static models at Rice.edu.
Nice one Mr.Buckminster....sig
Hooray! One more thing you don't need metals for!
So far, Carbon is good for hardness (diamond), tensile strength (aramid fiber, buckytubes), lubrication (graphite), electrical conductivity (buckytubes), and now it can even be used for magnetic memory, and presumably for transformer cores, and antennae.
When NanoTech hits in a big way, I suspect that we'll have a major issue with depletion of atmospheric CO2.
BTW, anyone know of a form of Carbon for that's good for optical fiber, or do we just continue to rely on Silicon for that?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Actualy NASA uses/used a form of core memory involving plated wires, for non-volatile memory in spacecraft. Seems resonable that fullereens would be stronger than the ferrite materials used in standard core memory, making it easier to make smaller arrays of core.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
It is absolutely amazing to see something like this happening. Upon entry on a research program most science programs I knew required the applicant to fill-in a form stating:
- what the project will be
- budget requirements
- chronogram
- publishing chronogram
- what the results will be
Now I wonder how many years of tenure one needs to be allowed to have unexpected results... *grin*