Strained graphene leads to pseudo-magnetic fields, bends physics even further
By Darren Murph 
posted August 2nd 2010 6:33PM
posted August 2nd 2010 6:33PM
Man, if only this had been discovered before Ariadne was tasked with building impossible dreams. A team of scientists caught high-fiving over at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have a new and riveting announcement to share, and it revolves around our old and trusted friend, graphene. This go 'round, the self-proclaimed "extraordinary form of carbon" is being stressed to its max, but not without good reason. Thanks to inquisitive minds and a "stroke of serendipity," a research team was able to create magnetic fields in excess of 300 tesla by simply straining graphene in a certain way. For physicists, the discovery is a dream come true, particularly when you realize that magnetic fields in excess of 85 tesla were practically impossible to come across in a laboratory setting. The benefits here? It's honestly too early to tell, but gurus in the field are already suggesting that the "opportunities for basic science with strain engineering [are] huge." Something tells us Magneto would concur.
NMR
@sven gadget
Its a "pseudo-magnetic" field. Electrons behave as if they see a 300T field despite the absence of the application of an actual 300T field. Thus, I don't think it has any NMR applications as of yet.
@sven gadget
LIES!!!! The Dharma Initiative knew about this 30 years ago!!!
@sven gadget
When I read the article what came to my mind was, "is there a way to exploit this to produce nuclear fusion?"
Maybe to enhance a plasma focus or something.
@sven gadget
Or, a display technology even. I reckon that magnetic field may be able to move pixels.
@JS It's kinda messed up that I'm more excited by your response suggesting cool new monitors than I am about the post above yours suggesting nuclear fusion.
@JS
I think this would be useful for colonizing Mars. Since Mars doesn't have its own magnetic field, this thing further developed could shield people of those nasty radiation particles.
Seriously engadget, read the article. "electrons behave as if they were subject to magnetic fields in excess of 300 tesla, even though no magnetic field has actually been applied"
@sven gadget Well I, for one, welcome our new, mutant, magnetic overlords.
@JS
yes, let's go back to crt!
Unfamiliar with what it means by 'psuedo' magnetic fields, but could this eventually be used for magnetic shield on space stations/ships/mars habitats down the road?
1.21 Gigawatts?! Holy crap!
@Jonathan Dumaine
I believe the phrase you were going for is "Great Scott!"
@Jonathan Dumaine
What the hell is a gigawatt?!
So you're saying it will keep my kid's schoolwork on the fridge?
@chispito 300T will keep your fridge on another fridge.
Yo dawg.
Even with all the news of earthquakes and oil spills there is a bright light remaining from the innovation of these people
@jaxidaisical
Everybody DANCE!!! -yeah yeah yeah!!
Life is GOOOOOD... YAH YAH YAH!!!
This is F-f-u-n!..yah yah yah!!
My anus is bleeding - YEAH YEAH YEAH!!!
MY ANUS IS BLEEDING - YAH YAH YAH!!!
For the love of god and everything that is holly MY ANUS IS BLEEDING!!! - yah yah yah!!!
This sounds similar to the groundbreaking discovery of making energy from a thermal wave down a carbon nanotube. All very heady stuff, not really sure what it all means...you know, double rainbow style
Flying cars here we come! :D
@ArcticWolf
and back to the future style skateboards. About time.
@ArcticWolf
300T should get you flying cars!! cummon 2015 is right around the corner and I need my hover upgrade on my ridgeline for $49999.99!!!
Moreso now that Nicola Tesla has Magneto's power.
I'm Gonna Ask You A Bunch Of Questions, And I Want To Have Them Answered Immediately!
@rmbrown09
who is your daddy and what does he do?
Hoverboards with POWER!!!
Enough talk.
Just gimme my flying car.
+9,001 for Inception refrence
@10nisman94 More like a non-sequiter than refrence...I dont remember part of the movie with graphene, stress, or magnets.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN?!
@loocas
The future is going to have a lot of black holes that you'll have to drive around... Accidents will happen, but life will go on as usual...
A few years ago, our company was coordinating the installation of MRI machines at UCLA. the larger MRI's were rated at 3.0 Teslas, and were said to be strong enough to turn common metal objects (like fire extinguishers) into deadly rockets that would blast through walls to get to the magnet if the room wasn't properly shielded.
I can only imagine what *300* teslas could do
@i8urCookies
What do you imagine they'd do?
@Raffi256
Make bits of metal fly a bit faster.
@i8urCookies
There are no 300 teslas, that's why it's a pseudo-magnetic field. Electrons behave as if there was a magnetic field but there isn't. So metal object should not fly around, although I'm not sure if this is only restricted to electrons living in the material.
Sorry folks but no magneto powers just yet...
I'm waiting for the next luminaries video (with J Brave of course)
So could someone explain stressing them? Is this physical stress or what? So could you just bend these things and they produce a field.
@Blaque14K
Not that kind of stress! They make the Graphene get a fat wife, with two ugly kids, a job with crappy hours and crappy pay and a crappier boss then they wait a couple of hours...and presto! Stressed Graphen
Not that kind of stress! They make the Graphene get a fat wife, with two ugly kids, a job with crappy hours and crappy pay and a crappier boss then they wait a couple of hours...and presto! Stressed Graphene!
@Maurizio
Please downrank my missplaced post!
This might be completely out of the ballpark as I'm admittedly stupid in the field of physics but how powerful is the Earths magnetic field?
@ike760
An average of 0.5 gauss at the surface. 10000 Gauss = 1 tesla, so 50 microteslas. Not very strong. That's why you have to be sure you don't have any metal objects too near a compass, because they could possibly overwhelm the Earth's magnetic field.
@SemisolidSnake Im not sure we'd want to but i have read before that the Earth's magnetic field is slowly weakening due to a reversal of the poles...and in lue of a weakened magnetic field we would be more vulnerable to solar flares...so would it even be plausible to make a man-made magnetic field that could encompass the earth?
i felt really strongly about this, i did get a single thing this person was saying, i usually now about tech but this is redonkulous, what is this and why does this belong on engadget. ITS A QUESTION, and i can ask if i want to!!!
bring on the flying saucers
So - no replacement for rare earth magnets for motors then, right - since it isn't an actual magnetic field?
But then - if 'electrons behave as if there is a magnet field' - does that mean you can induce a current moving a metal rod in such a pseudo-field?
@savagemike
No you couldnt, because the actual magnetic field creates the induced current, a pseudo-mag field wouldnt induce a current, although if it did, that would be pretty awesome
Comparatively speaking:
Earth geomagnetism is about 0.5 T.
A common magnet is 1.0 T
A rare earth magnet is up to 1.4 T.
A Magnetic Resonance Imaging is 1.5 T.
Some high field MRI can reach up to 10 T.
And experimentally, the limit was 90 T.
But this technology feature 300 T. It is insane and it can become a technological revolution.
@magallanes
Unless I misinterpreted things, there is no magnetic field at that strength - the electrons are merely behaving as if they were subjected to 300T due to some interesting properties of graphene. Perhaps someone more clued in that I can shed some light on this.