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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.
Why is any new discovery automatically thrown into the PC composnents arena, even when there is no actual connection?
It's a magnet, think SUPER-MOTOR.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Transparent as in transparent aluminium, ala Trek? Can I build my whale tank now? ;)
Also, Makarova's material is flexible and transparent, properties that could make it useful for storing data when a laser is used to record on it. It might also be possible to record data at unprecedented densities.
Man, this is really going to piss off Hillary Rosen...
What about a new 'cool' translusent colored Fridge magnet!
Yes, but -255C is lower than 200C! Besides, I hardly think -200C would count as room temperature.....
MS: ALL YOUR
Actually, no. What the article was saying was that the material is the first non-metallic material that was magnetic at room temperature (meaning that other non-magnetic materials weren't, at least not at room temperature). The point about the material being magnetic even above 200C was about the material's Curie point (above which the material stops being magnetic) being much higher than any other material, the previous record being 255C which was held by a different form of buckyballs. So this material is interesting because it's the first non-metallic material to be magnetic at room temperature and has a higher Curie point than any other non-metallic material to date.
Apparently, the material's magnetism could be linked to unpaired electrons, which can sustain a magnetic field when their spins are aligned (in this case there are unpaired electrons). One possibility is that they bond in triangular groups of three, which would provide for unpaired spins.
Although, to be used as computer memory it would have to have uniform magnetism, not just in pockets. But either way it's a significant step forward.
----------
When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer our friend.
The error is in the word "higiest" alright... :-)
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
- room temperature.: Aound 21C.
- the new material was magnetic even above 200 C..The word "even" seems to imply that it is a feat to go above a certain temperature . Which implies that with higher temperature, materials tend to lose their magnetism (Curie point). Which implies that the material is also magnetic for all temperatures below 200 C. Which includes 21C, i.e. room temperature. Probably, the reason for the
strange formulation was that the researcher didn't have any oven handy which went over 200 C, or that any higher temperature fried his magnetism measuring equipment, or whatever. So he was just saying that at 200 C it was keeping
its magnetism, and that it was likely that it would keep it even beyond that mark.
- Until now, the highest temperature at which a non-metallic material was magnetic was 255 C. The words "until now" means "all materials known before" this one was discovered. Meaning that the 255 C refers to a different material. Oh, and btw, 255 C (that's minus 255) is below room temperature.
So where is the contradiction?... to wrap microscopic hardware parts. Finally we've found a solution to that one!
Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
yes, that's what is happening. IE5.5 isn't showing the minus sign on -255 even though it's there in the source. That's pretty scarey.
They used a Soft Hyphen ( or ) character instead of a minus sign. Browsers are not supposed to display a Soft Hyphen unless the line is broken at that point.
I cannot find the negative sign in the article, not even in the source...
Still, (I'm no physisist) I interpreted this bit as "well, this bucky formation is magnetic (slightly) above 200 Celsius, which is high, but did not break the record, which is held by another formation which is magnetic at 255 Celsius"
Bizar technology?
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
Not only will they give us a new form of storage, but they can also be used as a treatment for AIDS.
Interesting how versatile a simple molecule can be..
I can understand how a magnetic non-metal could be written to with a laser (briefly heating a spot above the curie point I assume), but it's not clear that you can read with the same mechanism. Could someone with a real grasp of the physics take a guess at the mechanisms they're hinting at? For that matter, what do we do with memory with exceptional write performance, but dismal read performance. I'm sure there are some scientific and data acquisition applications that could benefit.
They don't need to make those iron-bearing structures anymore.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Right, so yet another possible way to store lots of data. We hear about these all the time (holographic memory, molecular storage etc.), but when are we actually going to get some of this - at the moment everyone still seems to be working on Winchester drives and semiconductor memory.
Is all this just pie in the sky, or are people actually producing devices that use these exotic storage methods? I figure this is about the best place to ask.
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."
Doesn't show up in Kmeleon either.
It's a mistake in the HTML, the 250 should be -250, but they put a soft hyphen in instead of a minus sign or a dash.
I looked at the source and saw a single ASCII '-' character, using IE and Netscape. It should display and on Netscape it does display. On IE it does NOT.
Nor is it fixed in IE 6.0.2600 that ships with XP.
Nasty little bug!
aramid is a bit more than just Carbon.. need nitrogen and oxygen too. This is a nice explanation on what kevlar (and other aramids) is..
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
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
There aren't consumer level apps that max out existing memory yet, by orders of magnitude, anyhow. There are also still gains to be had from conventional storage. So it's the chicken-egg problem. Once existing technology is nearing it's limit, then someone will produce an alternative to keep up.. but it's nice to know there's lots of choices.
..don't panic
adding insult to injury, wordpad doesn't show the soft hyphen either, which means it doesn't show up in the source.
I was a bit confused, when I could see it in the browser, but not in the source. Notepad solved that little problem.
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
Becided the use in computer technology could these be used to create more efficient generators, and lighter electrical motors that need less electrical energy to produce. Yea computers are great and all but just the Light Magnetic quality can help out a lot too.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
since ram is already getting so damn cheap (I recall back not too long ago - '95'ish - when it was $3-8 a meg) - now with these technologies to make it lighter, faster, better, cheaper - how much less will/can it cost?
my guess is that I will start getting paid to use the ram.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
Someone did that to me once... reposted a letter I'd posted regarding UCITA, IIRC, but with added in references to masturbation and whatnot.
It was pretty funny. I enjoy a tasty roast once in awhile.
-l
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I figure most geeks on slashdot already know what a buckyball looks like; just in case, for the U.S. readers, this means soccerball-shaped...
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*I wonder if they could eventually assemble carbon atoms in such a way as to trade-off the flexibility of this "buckywall" structure for the durability of diamond.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Could this technology be used to develop inexpensive flat panel displays? It sounds like it could possibly be ideal. Transparent, flexible, magnetic. I know that there was some talk recently about the possibility of using carbon nanotubes in a display device. Now if they could just get past the mass production barrier, things could be looking very good.
From what I understand, mass production shouldn't be too much of a problem either. First of all, I always thought that carbon nanotubes were a lot harder to produce than buckyballs. Second of all, Dr. Smalley has been claiming loudly that his company will be able to mass produce nanotubes in the very near future.
What do you think? Anyone have any info. on this?
"War makes me sad." - Me
What do you find hilarious? How do you feel they should be named? Who should name them, if not the discoverer?
Buckyballs is a nickname; the compound is 'buckminsterfullerene'.. a fitting name, given the molecule's resemblence to Buckminster Fuller's domes.
And why do you think bad things happen? Even though we're 'trying' to do the right thing? What they are TRYING to do is experiment - test their hypothesis. It's okay to be wrong.. that's the whole point of the scientific method. Real scientists never, ever expect to be right all the time; you experiment so you can further your research, whether it's to cut-off a certain avenue of thinking with certainty, or try to open up a new one.
They traded the forumla for transparent aluminum to the guy in exchange for the plexiglass they needed; they didn't have any money.
Even with the molecular structure, it would have taken years to figure out how to make it.
Absolute zero is -273.15C (or is it .16)
or 0K There is no such thing as 'degrees kelvin'; the proper way to say it is 'zero kelvins'.
And this discovery has absolutely nothing to do with superconductivity; only that they were trying to produce a superconductor when they discovered it was magnetic. This is not an advancement in superconductivity. They didn't produce a superconductor. That's obvious even without reading the article...
Also, you are correct about superconductors.. but... the reason microprocessors work is because they are full of SEMIconductors... transistors... you HAVE to have resistance.. you can't build logic with pure superconductors.
To add 'under *exactly* one atmosphere' of pressure, or 101.325 kpa ( I think )
GTRacer
- "Fix that soft hyphen with this new virility drug! $19.95 for a 5-day supply!"
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
There is a bug in some browsers that fail to display the - sign. The articl may appear to say the previous temp was 255c when it actually says(look in the source) -255c.
I don't know how to post a story update, so I'll do this here.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
you're browser is not displaying the minus sign,
its formerly minus 255c, now positive 200c.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Good idea, but I doubt it.
For large scale power generation, the generators do not use permanent magnets, but rather use electromagnets. These electromagnets are energized by a small current, then the generator spun up, and the electromagnets keep generating a magnetic field, either by being fed directly off the generator (like a car alternator works), or by simple induction (look here for how to do this yourself from common electric motors!!!). Permanent magnets tend to only be used on small generators like that used for bicycle lights, or for the spark generation on small engines (where I suppose it could make a difference).
As for motors, most AC motors, once again, are either induction based, or three phase with two sets of electromagnets - no permanent magnets used. Where it could get interesting though, for electric vehicles - where I think your idea might have merit. A lighter, but more powerful motor using these magnets (if they prove to be more powerful than other magnets, of course) would mean longer battery life. Still, I think some electric vehicles actually use AC motors as well, and do a DC->AC conversion. AC motors are used, I think, because even after the conversion from DC to AC, they are more powerful for a smaller package, and more efficient (of course, I could be wrong - someone enlighten me, please).
Also, smaller, lighter motors could mean smaller conventional DC motors, like smaller pager motors, smaller printer stepper motors, all the small motors that exist (smaller, lighter, more powerful kick-ass battlebot motors - yeah!!!)...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Ok, evidently the problem is with some browsers just not showing the negative sign. HTML typo, not an editing one.
Dyolf Knip
Actually, from what I understand, what "holds the light in around curves" in current fiber optic strands is the cladding, which is of a different refraction index, thus it bends (bounces) the light back toward the center, except in extremely tight bends. I would imagine the same thing would/could be done with this stuff. Also, sometimes having the light leak can be a good thing: Think VR glove bend sensors, and lightweight robotic whisker bump sensors (see Gordon McCombs latest edition of "99 Inexpensive Robotics Projects" for more on this one)...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I wonder if this stuff could be used to make "flat ribbon"-style speakers better & cheaper?
Didn't know that. Cool.
that you watch the movie again.
I'm absolutely, 100%, positively sure about this. So is every review of the movie I can find online.
They didn't have USD because they don't use money in the future...remember when they first arrive on earth? They need money?
Scotty traded the guy the formula for transparent aluminum. It was a *plexiglass* factory. It's even mentioned in the movie (I forget by who) that it will take years just to figure out how to synthesize... and they needed their plexiglass *immediately*.
Well, I don't think I'll ever meet anyone who's not Carbon-based, but if I do I'll try to keep an open mind. There's no need to call me "biased." ;-)
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
On the ironic note
While you're there, check out http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=iro nic ("poignantly contrary to what was expected") .. I think you meant, on a "coincidental" note :) (Check out their "usage note" for 'ironic' too :).
I remember a lot of this from high school physics - I didn't want to get too deep into it in my reply, but you did an excellent job.
One thing, I am sure you are aware of, is in regards to the wave/particle duality of particles (double slit experiment), which of course begins to lead one down a slippery slope toward quantum physics, HUP, and other "magical" things...
Looks like, in a way, Newton was right after all.
Reason is the Path to God - Anon