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How to Turn Carbon into a Magnet


- Researchers have introduced carbon to the selective club of magnetic elements

Magnets are materials that produce a magnetic field of their own. Only a few elements, especially iron, cobalt, nickel and neodymium, are ferromagnetic (permanent magnets) at room temperature.

Now, a group of scientist has successfully introduced a naturally non-magnetic material to the exclusive club of magnetic elements.

Until now, they only suspected that carbon belongs to the short list of materials that can be magnetic at room temperature, but no solid proof was ever produced, and those who have been included are still widely controversial. "In the past, some groups thought they had discovered magnetic carbon," said Hendrik Ohldag, the paper's lead author and staff scientist at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) at SLAC. "Unfortunately, they realized later that they were misled by small amounts of iron, cobalt or nickel in their samples."
Researchers at the Department of Energy's Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), working with colleagues from the University of Leipzig in Germany have finally demonstrated the carbon's ability to be made magnetic.

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