[HN Gopher] Physicists Magnetize a Material with Light
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Physicists Magnetize a Material with Light
Author : thunderbong
Score : 154 points
Date : 2025-01-07 17:54 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (news.mit.edu)
(TXT) w3m dump (news.mit.edu)
| physicsguy wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| Knowledge 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 wrote:
| I agree and I am sure physicguy also agree but, alas, those
| who manage the grants system frequently don't.
| lukan wrote:
| Because 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 wrote:
| Divert a percentage of military spending to a pool of
| money for scientists to use.
| lukan wrote:
| What do the taxpayers say?
|
| (Me I say yes! But I learned, I usually do not represent
| a majority)
| superturkey650 wrote:
| Isn't that what government grants essentially already
| are?
| gmueckl wrote:
| In the US, maybe. But other countries don't need to
| launder research money through their defense budgets.
| dinkumthinkum wrote:
| Many such countries have their defense subsidized by the
| US.
| virgilp wrote:
| Well 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 wrote:
| On 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.
| devmor wrote:
| Do you believe the US receives no economic benefit from
| that defense, or that it is providing said defense at a
| loss?
| Tostino wrote:
| Yeah, let's go back to heavily armed European countries
| at each other's necks every couple decades... The US
| benefits immensely from having a stable and not terribly
| militaristic trading bloc.
| Loughla wrote:
| How is it laundering if the research has an explicit use
| for the military? I'm confused on your point.
| jachee wrote:
| It would be nice if the research could be just for the
| general public good instead of having to have an explicit
| use for the military to get the money.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| You're using a military technology to communicate that
| thought.
| jachee wrote:
| Imagine how much better it would've been if not for the
| military involvement. Imagine how many things developed
| purely to enhance the efficiency of destroying other
| humans could have been developed instead to enhance and
| improve lives instead. So many trillions wasted on
| imaginary borders and in service of imaginary friends
| over the last... ever.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| And yet time and time again we see science struggle to
| move forward in meaningful ways unless there is conflict
| / the military funds it.
| devmor wrote:
| How do you explain scientific advancement in less armed
| nations? Some of the most advanced research in the world
| happens in states with incredibly small forces.
|
| Perhaps you've confused the economic advantage of a
| militaristic state with a connection between military
| science and progress.
| Ma8ee wrote:
| What a load off bull! Most fundamental discoveries have
| been independent of conflicts.
| mnky9800n wrote:
| This is a popular argument but there are plenty of things
| that cost orders of magnitude more taxes that go towards
| projects that lots of people don't agree with. Americas
| trillion dollar war machine for example.
| babycheetahbite wrote:
| Well put. But, of course many on here don't have time for
| the concerns of simpleton non-elites, and whether they
| should have a say about where their money goes; I've
| noticed lately I look for the greyed out comments first
| on HN.
| thecoppinger wrote:
| Here'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
| mnky9800n wrote:
| You are correct. Please try to convince grant agencies that
| blue sky research doesn't need direct application.
| HenryBemis wrote:
| Like 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 wrote:
| Maybe the outlandish future star trek etc promised will come into
| fruition after all
| anthk wrote:
| Current Physics look like a Zorkian/Discworldian tale.
| Terr_ wrote:
| At 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 wrote:
| Zork adventures too. They parodied learning system
| commands/programming with in-game spells.
| okwhateverdude wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| Could be useful in space where those are the default conditions
| chongli wrote:
| Space is a fantastic insulator. Space suits for astronauts
| have to be cooled, not heated.
| syntaxing wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| It's not that bad - 118K is slightly above the boiling point of
| LNG(~112K), so achievable at scale.
| mjfl wrote:
| It's basic research
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| >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.
| okwhateverdude wrote:
| Indeed, that is what I meant. This is a neat result, just not
| practical yet.
| Ma8ee wrote:
| We are on the other hand still waiting for the room
| temperature super conductor and the fusion reactors. I'd say
| that most interesting breakthroughs never reach the stage
| where they are useful.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| So it works at room temperature in low earth orbit.
| floxy wrote:
| Because of solar radiation, you have to take special measures
| with heat shields, etc, to achieve low temperatures in low
| earth orbit.
|
| https://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/Numbers/Math/Mathematical_.
| ..
| kolanos wrote:
| Could it have a practical use in space? Which is both already a
| vacuum and close to absolute zero temperature wise?
| idunnoman1222 wrote:
| A practical application of storing data in space that could
| just easily be beamed to earth to be stored?
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| From everything I'm seeing so far, all protocols for space
| are stateful to deal with the incredibly high latency.
|
| I can see a future where the space between earth and mars
| is a constellation of massive caching servers.
| worthless-trash wrote:
| Please, we can only get so excited.
| m463 wrote:
| you could have rotating disks that can encode data as
| they turn towards the sun.
|
| Or the sun's light could drive the rotation using
| magnetic force.
| megablast wrote:
| Exactly. I can't believe they published something if we can't
| buy it and use it right now.
| 52-6F-62 wrote:
| That's good. Ideally we won't have a scattering of profit
| seeking engineering firms casting magnetic fields everywhere
| when we have the most cursory scientific understanding of high
| spin metals in the brain.
|
| If anything, we might reassess our current usage...
|
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8189590/
|
| https://web.stanford.edu/group/solomon/research.html
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266652202...
| skywal_l wrote:
| Tractor beam!
| busyant wrote:
| Given your comment, you may like this:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_tweezers
| neuroelectron wrote:
| Terahertz 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 wrote:
| Thanks! 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 wrote:
| Gotta love the picture of the three, because it is not staged.
| Nevermark wrote:
| It 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 wrote:
| Isnt all light terahertz light?
| spauldo wrote:
| Only if you define light as radiation your eyes are sensitive
| to. In scientific articles, it usually means all frequencies.
| tempodox wrote:
| Nope, terahertz range, even 999.9 THz, is way too low a
| frequency to be visible as light for us.
| westurner wrote:
| "Researchers discover new material for optically-controlled
| magnetic memory" (2024) 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
|
| > _MnBi2Te4_
|
| ScholarlyArticle: "Terahertz field-induced metastable
| magnetization near criticality in FePS3" (2024)
| 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://scitechdaily.com/memory-breakthrough-helical-magnets...
| .. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41921153
| bilsbie wrote:
| Can we create matter from light?
| philipkglass wrote:
| Indeed we can:
|
| 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 wrote:
| Breit-Wheeler process > Experimental observations: https://en
| .wikipedia.org/wiki/Breit%E2%80%93Wheeler_process#...
| hexo wrote:
| hm, electromagnetic field is light. it was light all the time.
| anyfoo wrote:
| So instead of magneto-optic media, we can now have opto-magnetic
| media?
| metalman wrote:
| a 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
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