Shaken, not heated: The ideal recipe for manipulating magnetism
Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - 04:30
in Physics & Chemistry
(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have found a way to distort the atomic arrangement and change the magnetic properties of an important class of electronic materials with ultra-short pulses of terahertz (mid-infrared) laser light without heating the material up. While the achievement is currently of purely scientific interest, the researchers say this new approach control could ultimately lead to extremely fast, low-energy, non-volatile computer memory chips or data-switching devices.