Scientists at the University of California, San Diego have developed a highly sensitive magnetic material they say could drastically change computer hard drives and electrical grids.
Made of thin layers of nickel and vanadium oxide, the material is extremely responsive to heat and requires only a small shift in temperature to alter its magnetic properties.
“We can control the magnetism in just a narrow range of temperature—without applying a magnetic field. And in principle we could also control it with voltage or current,” Ivan Schuller, a professor in the physics department at UC San Diego, told the BBC.
“At low temperatures, the oxide is an insulator. At high temperatures it’s a metal. And in between it becomes this strange material.”
“No other material known to man can do this. It’s a huge effect. And we can engineer it.”
The new material could be used in a number of applications, says Schuller, the most obvious of which is computer memory systems.
“A problem with magnetic memory is reversibility—you want it to be reversible but also stable,” he said during a presentation on the new magnetic material at the American Physical Society meeting in Denver, Colo. earlier this year.
“Today’s best systems are heat-assisted, but they use lasers, which involves a lot of heat. But with this new material, you barely need to heat it by 20 degrees (Kelvin) to get a five-fold change in coercivity (magnetic resistance).”
Another potential use is in electricity networks. Schuller envisions a new type of transformer that can cope with sudden surges in current, such as during a lightning strike or power surge.
The material could also lead to the development of completely new and unexpected technologies.
“If you want to find the next transformative technology, this is the type of research you do. We don’t know what the best application is yet,” Schuller said.
“I’m not saying [the new material] going to solve world’s energy crisis, but it’s certainly going to help us.”
