kmguru
02-04-02, 10:21 AM
NEWS
** Follow The Bouncing Ball To Storage
Russian scientists say they may have created the next big thing
in computer memory: flexible, transparent sheets of carbon, the
first pure nonmetallic magnets to work at room temperature. The
material could lead to cheap, durable, extremely high-density
storage.
Physicist Tatiana Makarova says she created the stuff in a
fortuitous accident while trying to produce new high-
temperature superconductors. She was experimenting with
buckyballs--exotic, soccer-ball-shaped spheres of carbon
atoms--trying to force them to join in a sheet by superheating
and pressurizing them. The resulting material didn't
superconduct but was magnetic at room temperature up through
200 degrees Celsius. The highest temperature anyone had ever
gotten a nonmetallic magnet to work before was at a frigid -255
Celsius.
Room-temperature organic magnets are much lighter and more
flexible than metallic magnets, making them ideal for use in
electronic devices. They also have semiconducting and
insulating properties, making them potentially useful in
chipbuilding. What's more, Makarova and her team from the Ioffe
Physico-Technical Institute in St. Petersburg have found that
the material is photoresponsive, changing its magnetic
properties when a light is shined on it. That could make it
useful in optical storage.
"It's very interesting research," says Laszlo Mihaly, a
professor of physics at the State University of New York at
Stony Brook, and who studies buckyballs. "Some of the bonds
within the balls are broken up and linked between the balls,
and this makes it kind of a network, and a weak magnet." Mihaly
says buckyballs could prove important in developing other new
materials, including superconducting transistors. "It's an
integrated circuit that's flexible, cheap, and can be mass
produced." - David M. Ewalt
** Follow The Bouncing Ball To Storage
Russian scientists say they may have created the next big thing
in computer memory: flexible, transparent sheets of carbon, the
first pure nonmetallic magnets to work at room temperature. The
material could lead to cheap, durable, extremely high-density
storage.
Physicist Tatiana Makarova says she created the stuff in a
fortuitous accident while trying to produce new high-
temperature superconductors. She was experimenting with
buckyballs--exotic, soccer-ball-shaped spheres of carbon
atoms--trying to force them to join in a sheet by superheating
and pressurizing them. The resulting material didn't
superconduct but was magnetic at room temperature up through
200 degrees Celsius. The highest temperature anyone had ever
gotten a nonmetallic magnet to work before was at a frigid -255
Celsius.
Room-temperature organic magnets are much lighter and more
flexible than metallic magnets, making them ideal for use in
electronic devices. They also have semiconducting and
insulating properties, making them potentially useful in
chipbuilding. What's more, Makarova and her team from the Ioffe
Physico-Technical Institute in St. Petersburg have found that
the material is photoresponsive, changing its magnetic
properties when a light is shined on it. That could make it
useful in optical storage.
"It's very interesting research," says Laszlo Mihaly, a
professor of physics at the State University of New York at
Stony Brook, and who studies buckyballs. "Some of the bonds
within the balls are broken up and linked between the balls,
and this makes it kind of a network, and a weak magnet." Mihaly
says buckyballs could prove important in developing other new
materials, including superconducting transistors. "It's an
integrated circuit that's flexible, cheap, and can be mass
produced." - David M. Ewalt