Researchers achieve greater precision in measuring the movement of microscopic magnets
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.