http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Research at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Advanced Light Source promises four-bit magnetic cells instead of the two-bit magnetic domains of standard magnetic memories. Magnetic vortices are whirlpools of magnetic field, in which electron spins point either clockwise or counterclockwise. In the crowded center of the whirlpool the spins point either down or up. These four orientations could represent separate bits of information in a new kind of memory, if controlled independently and simultaneously. http://phys.org/news288433476.html Nanotechnology Wed, 22 May 2013 09:24:44 EST news288433476 (Phys.org) —Using laser light to read and write magnetic data by quickly flipping tiny magnetic domains could help keep pace with the demand for faster computing devices. http://phys.org/news282990919.html Physics Wed, 20 Mar 2013 09:35:35 EST news282990919 Almost 100 years after the initial discovery, a team of scientists at the University of Alberta and the National Institute for Nanotechnology in Edmonton have harnessed the Barkhausen Effect as a new kind of high-resolution microscopy for the insides of magnetic materials. http://phys.org/news277652765.html Physics Thu, 17 Jan 2013 14:00:28 EST news277652765 At microscopic scales, magnetic materials are full of structure. Tiny magnets, called domains, order themselves in ways that control the magnetic properties of the bulk material. Technologies such as hard disk drives exploit this order by storing information in individual domain directions. In the past decade, however, engineers and scientists have focused increasingly on what happens between—rather than within—domains. They have also proposed new logic, memory, sensing and communication devices that manipulate the walls separating neighboring domains. Now, Shin'ichi Hikino from the RIKEN Advanced Science Institute, along with three Japan-based colleagues, has proposed a new and highly sensitive experimental technique for measuring domain wall motion. http://phys.org/news270463407.html Physics Fri, 26 Oct 2012 10:00:01 EST news270463407 (Phys.org)—Scientists from TU Berlin, DESY and the University of Paris discovered a surprising effect in the demagnetisation of ferromagnetic materials at DESY's free-electron laser FLASH. The team of researchers headed by Professor Stefan Eisebitt from Technische Universität Berlin is part of an international collaboration. The scientists found that electrons can move very quickly between areas with different magnetisation and thereby influence the demagnetisation of the material. The effect could play a decisive role in reducing the size of magnetic memories. "Optical demagnetisation is by far the quickest process to change magnetisation locally, and this in turn is the basis of magnetic storage," Eisebitt explains. "Therefore, optical processes could help make magnetic memories faster in the future." The scientists published the results of their study in the current issue of the journal Nature Communications. http://phys.org/news268468961.html Physics Wed, 03 Oct 2012 07:42:55 EST news268468961 (Phys.org)—Scientists working at SLAC's Linac Coherent Light Source have captured the first single-shot X-ray microscope image of a magnetic nanostructure and shown that it can be done without damaging the material. http://phys.org/news265625302.html Physics Fri, 31 Aug 2012 09:48:33 EST news265625302 Normally a material can be either magnetically or electrically polarized, but not both. Now researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen have studied a material that is simultaneously magnetically and electrically polarizable. This opens up new possibilities, for example, for sensors in technology of the future. The results have been published in the scientific journal, Nature Materials. http://phys.org/news259765210.html Physics Sun, 24 Jun 2012 14:00:23 EST news259765210 Toyohashi Tech researchers have fabricated Hall effect magnetic field sensors operable at least 400 C and in extreme radiation conditions using gallium nitride-based heterostructures a with two-dimensional electron gas. http://phys.org/news251621181.html Physics Thu, 22 Mar 2012 07:46:45 EST news251621181 Physicists at UC San Diego have developed a new kind of X-ray microscope that can penetrate deep within materials like Superman's fabled X-ray vision and see minute details at the scale of a single nanometer, or one billionth of a meter. http://phys.org/news232036122.html Nanotechnology Mon, 08 Aug 2011 15:30:15 EST news232036122 Computer files that allow us to watch videos, store pictures, and edit all kinds of media formats are nothing else but streams of "0" and "1" digital data, that is, bits and bytes. Modern computing technology is based on our ability to write, store, and retrieve digital information as efficiently as possible. In a computer hard disk, this is achieved in practice by writing information on a thin magnetic layer, where magnetic domains pointing "up" represent a "1" and magnetic domains pointing down represent a "0". http://phys.org/news231413499.html Physics Mon, 01 Aug 2011 11:20:05 EST news231413499 Although they exist in almost every magnetic material, you cannot see them: magnetic domains are microscopically small regions of uniform magnetization. Dr. Ingo Manke and his group at the Institute of Applied Material Research at HZB, Germany, have developed a method by which they can image the full spatial structure of magnetic domains -- even deep within materials. http://phys.org/news209739358.html Physics Tue, 23 Nov 2010 12:56:17 EST news209739358