RUB physicists let magnetic dipoles interact on the
nanoscale for the first time
“Of great technical interest for future hard disk drives”
Physicists at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) have found
out how tiny islands of magnetic material align themselves when sorted on a
regular lattice - by measurements at BESSY II. Contrary to expectations, the
north and south poles of the magnetic islands did not arrange themselves in a
zigzag pattern, but in chains. “The understanding of the driving interactions
is of great technological interest for future hard disk drives, which are
composed of small magnetic islands”, says Prof. Dr. Hartmut Zabel of the Chair
of Experimental Physics / Solid State Physics at the RUB. Together with
colleagues from the Helmholtz-Zentrum in Berlin, Bochum’s researchers report in
the journal “Physical Review Letters”.