Team leverages OSC services to help confirm, interpret
experimental findings
(May 28, 2015) Phonons—the
elemental particles that transmit both heat and sound—have magnetic properties,
according to a landmark study supported by Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC)
services and recently published by a researcher group from The Ohio State
University.
In a recent issue of the journal Nature Materials, the
researchers describe how a magnetic field, roughly the size of a medical MRI,
reduced the amount of heat flowing through a semiconductor by 12 percent.
Simulations performed at OSC then identified the reason for it—the magnetic
field induces a diamagnetic response in vibrating atoms known as phonons, which
changes how they transport heat.