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April 12, 2010

New material is a breakthrough in magnetism

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(萌妹社区Org.com) -- Researchers from Imperial College London have created a structure that acts like a single pole of a magnet, a feat that has evaded scientists for decades. The researchers say their new Nature 萌妹社区ics study takes them a step closer to isolating a 'magnetic monopole.'

Magnets have two poles, north and south. 鈥楲ike鈥 poles, such as north and north, repel one another and 鈥榦pposite鈥 poles, such as north and south, attract. Whichever way a magnet is cut, it will always have these two poles.

Scientists have theorised for many years that it must be possible to isolate a 鈥鈥, either north or south on its own, but until recently researchers have been unable to show this in experiments.

Researchers at Imperial have now enabled tiny nano-sized magnets to behave like magnetic monopoles, by arranging them in a honeycomb structure. In late 2009, reported they had created monopole-like behaviour in a material called 鈥榮pin ice鈥. In these materials, monopoles form only at extremely low temperatures of -270 degrees Celsius. The Imperial researchers鈥 structure contains magnetic monopoles at .

, Dr Will Branford and Dr Sam Ladak, from the Department of 萌妹社区ics at Imperial, explain how magnets work and why they are so excited by their new breakthrough.

More information: 鈥溾 Nature 萌妹社区ics, Sunday 11 April 2010.

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