6 ms·
Physicists Magnetize a Material with Light
- moi2388 2y ago“ Antiferromagnets could be incorporated into future memory chips that store and process more data while using less energy” “using a terahertz laser” #doubt
- physicsguy 2y ago> scientists believe antiferromagnetic materials could be a more robust alternative to existing magnetic-based storage technologies Scientists working on interesting anti-ferromagnetic materials need a justification for doing so under the crazy grant system we operate, more like. The downside of antiferromagnetic data storage, or skyrmion storage, or any of the other various ideas recently, is that reading the data is very difficult even if it is present, to the point of making a real world device pretty much practically impossible. I know, I also worked on this sort of thing before leaving academia!
- reillys 2y agoKnowledge in itself is good. We don’t need everything to have a direct commercial application. In fact most discoveries by their nature do not have directly applicable commercial applications.
- nick__m 2y agoI agree and I am sure physicguy also agree but, alas, those who manage the grants system frequently don't.
- lukan 2y agoBecause those who pay for the taxes frequently don't. So some justification needs to happen to spend other peoples money. A better way would be nice, though.
- westmeal 2y agoDivert a percentage of military spending to a pool of money for scientists to use.
- lukan 2y agoWhat do the taxpayers say? (Me I say yes! But I learned, I usually do not represent a majority)
- superturkey650 2y agoIsn’t that what government grants essentially already are?
- gmueckl 2y agoIn the US, maybe. But other countries don't need to launder research money through their defense budgets.
- dinkumthinkum 2y agoMany such countries have their defense subsidized by the US.
- virgilp 2y agoWell we're getting into political territory, but recently that "subsidized" seems to have swiftly changed to "threatened", so, I don't know. What you say used to be true in the past, but it's not so clear anymore. Also: only country that ever invoked article 5 was actually the US. In that sense the opposite is true ("lots of countries have subsidized US defense"). The US "subsidy" came from the strong conviction that "US would act if we needed it", but that conviction is quickly evaporating.
- DrScientist 2y agoOn the other hand the US is running a large deficit and has a large debt - >120% of GDP - so that spend is in part other people's money. With the foreign countries holding the most US debt being Japan, China, UK, Luxembourg and Canada. I would also point out that you could view US bases in places like Japan or Chagos Islands as 'subsidising' local defence or it could be viewed as simple occupation.
- thecoppinger 2y agoHere's an excellent lecture that drives this point home: "Physics in the Interest of Society Lecture 2019: John Parmentola" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx-55BhuFks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx-55BhuFks
- mnky9800n 2y agoYou are correct. Please try to convince grant agencies that blue sky research doesn’t need direct application.
- HenryBemis 2y agoLike every other scientific discovery, weaponize it. I can imagine a few ways that one can disable advanced weaponry or cause harmful/adverse effects to weaponry, computer systems, and/or ammunition. I imagine that such a solution would cause the desired harm something without leaving a trace. I don't see "distance" mentioned on the article, but I did see a temperature (118 K = -155 C)(which make it (currently) impossible to use outside a lab). The breakthrough is here though, and now someone must already be at work to see if this can be operated in battlefield/real-life conditions. I remember on TBBT when they made a gyroscope-thingie-invention but it was 'THIS' big, and the army officer was pressing them to remake it 'that' small so it can be fitted on missiles (or whatever). Isn't this how it typically happens?
- qoez 2y agoMaybe the outlandish future star trek etc promised will come into fruition after all
- anthk 2y agoCurrent Physics look like a Zorkian/Discworldian tale.
- Terr_ 2y agoAt least for Discworld, I'd argue the causation was the other way around: The books parodied real things, often injecting a fantastic aspect with the subtext of "All you people in the real world should be a lot more amazed at what's going on here." For example, "hyphenated silicon" (semiconductor doping) involved in how rock trolls think, and the catch-all explanation of "because quantum."
- anthk 2y agoZork adventures too. They parodied learning system commands/programming with in-game spells.
- okwhateverdude 2y ago> the team worked with FePS3 — a material that transitions to an antiferromagnetic phase at a critical temperature of around 118 kelvins (-247 degrees Fahrenheit). > [...] > They placed the sample in a vacuum chamber and cooled it down to temperatures at and below 118 K. I feel like this massive caveat was buried half way through the article. This is why I dislike university press. I mean, the wizardry is impressive, but it isn't gonna revolutionize anything anytime soon if it requires a vacuum and liquid Krypton-ish temperatures.
- hanniabu 2y agoCould be useful in space where those are the default conditions
- chongli 2y agoSpace is a fantastic insulator. Space suits for astronauts have to be cooled, not heated.
- syntaxing 2y agoI think it’s more appropriate to say conduction and convection doesn’t work well. When you have a suit, it’s meant to block radiation and that’s the mode of heat transfer in space. If space was a fantastic insulator, the suit itself would eventually overheat since you have to remove the heat somehow (they boil off water in vacuum similar to sweat).
- Tade0 2y agoIt's not that bad - 118K is slightly above the boiling point of LNG(~112K), so achievable at scale.
- mjfl 2y agoIt’s basic research
- pbhjpbhj 2y ago>but it isn't gonna revolutionize anything anytime soon Reminds me of CCD. Back in the day CCD only worked effectively at liquid nitrogen temperatures; a couple of decades of development and you could have one in a pocket camera. Maybe that's what you meant.
- skywal_l 2y agoTractor beam!
- busyant 2y agoGiven your comment, you may like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_tweezers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_tweezers
- neuroelectron 2y agoTerahertz radiation falls in between infrared radiation and microwave radiation in the electromagnetic spectrum, and it shares some properties with each of these. I find it weird they used this term throughout the article.
- DarkSucker 2y agoThanks! I'm sick and couldn't bring myself to do the wavelength calculation. Your comment helped my thoughts. I think people working on microwave equipment (frequency counters, ...) work in Hz.That's probably why they used the term.
- kleiba 2y agoGotta love the picture of the three, because it is not staged.
- Nevermark 2y agoIt is hard to stage an unstaged photo. You would have to hide behind some equipment and wait for them to work, and at the same time, on the same thing. Hopefully when it was going well. Wild life photographers probably have some tips.
- brcmthrowaway 2y agoIsnt all light terahertz light?
- westurner 2y ago"Researchers discover new material for optically-controlled magnetic memory" (2024) https://phys.org/news/2024-08-material-optically-magnetic-memory.html https://phys.org/news/2024-08-material-optically-magnetic-me... .. "Distinguishing surface and bulk electromagnetism via their dynamics in an intrinsic magnetic topological insulator" (2024) https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adn5696 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adn5696 > MnBi2Te4 ScholarlyArticle: "Terahertz field-induced metastable magnetization near criticality in FePS3" (2024) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08226-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08226-x "Room temperature chirality switching and detection in a helimagnetic MnAu2 thin film" (2024) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-46326-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-46326-4 .. https://scitechdaily.com/memory-breakthrough-helical-magnets-pave-the-way-for-next-gen-storage/ https://scitechdaily.com/memory-breakthrough-helical-magnets... .. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41921153 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41921153
- bilsbie 2y agoCan we create matter from light?
- philipkglass 2y agoIndeed we can: https://www.energy.gov/science/np/articles/making-matter-collisions-light https://www.energy.gov/science/np/articles/making-matter-col... Scientists find strong evidence for the long-predicted Breit-Wheeler effect—generating matter and antimatter from collisions of real photons.
- westurner 2y agoBreit–Wheeler process > Experimental observations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breit%E2%80%93Wheeler_process#Experimental_observations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breit%E2%80%93Wheeler_process#...
- hexo 2y agohm, electromagnetic field is light. it was light all the time.
- anyfoo 2y agoSo instead of magneto-optic media, we can now have opto-magnetic media?
- metalman 2y agoa material keep in mind that ALL materials are photo reactive in one way or another, and that the realistic number of possible materials, is infinite* All materials are conductive in some way or condition, think : superconductors . Molecular strength engineering materials are something else waiting in the wings of material sciences. Main point is that, this is still early days with the full effects of bench top vs building size equipment used in research, to show. * hugely, massive, wow big make you dizzy, number