Scientists have successfully paired ferroelectric and ferrimagnetic materials so that their alignment can be controlled with a small electric field at near room temperatures, an achievement that could open doors to ultralow-power microprocessors, storage devices and next-generation electronics. Read more »
3D Charge Order Found in Superconductor
Resonant soft x-ray diffraction studies of a cuprate high-temperature superconductor revealed a 3D, long-range charge order—the first of its kind ever reported in a cuprate—that competes with superconductivity. A better understanding of such phenomena could help in the design of more robust superconductors with higher transition temperatures. Read more »
Antiferromagnetic Spins Do The Twist
At ALS Beamline 4.0.2, researchers have found that the spins in an antiferromagnetic nanolayer perform a version of “The Twist,” turning one way and then the other, challenging a model that has been a cornerstone of exchange-bias theory for 27 years.
Read more »
IBM Probes Material Capabilities at the ALS
Vanadium dioxide, one of the few known materials that acts like an insulator at low temperatures but like a metal at warmer temperatures, is a somewhat futuristic material that could yield faster and much more energy-efficient electronic devices. Researchers from IBM’s forward-thinking Spintronic Science and Applications Center (SpinAps) recently used the ALS to gain greater insight into vanadium dioxide’s unusual phase transition. Read more »
