They have changed the properties of rare earth metals! Incredible achievement by physicists

The research team members described their achievements in Science Advances, explaining that the recent developments have demonstrated something that was previously considered completely impossible. Thanks to systematic research, scientists from beyond our Western borders were able to create a situation in which laser pulses excited electrons that determine the magnetism of rare earth metals.

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They are very common, and even if we are not aware of them, they appear almost everywhere. However, for a long time it seemed that influencing the magnetic properties of these materials was impossible. In an attempt to refute this claim, physicists from Hamburg used X-ray lasers. The effects of these activities probably surprised even the authors themselves.

It is not just about challenging the established beliefs of the scientific community. The latest achievements must have a number of practical applications! Just imagine the possibility of designing more efficient, faster or more energy-efficient devices used to store information.

Magnetic properties of rare earth metals altered using laser pulses

During the experiments, the scientists used two extremely powerful lasers: EuXFEL and FLASH. The ultrashort X-ray pulses they emit make it possible to track processes occurring in magnetic materials on unimaginably short time scales. These are just a few femtoseconds, where a femtosecond is one millionth of a billionth of a second.

By firing lasers at rare earth metals, the engineers caused electrons to change their orbital states. The experiments focused on terbium, which was discovered in the 19th century and is used, among other things, in an alloy known as terphenol-D. The knowledge that laser pulses can be used to control the magnetic properties of rare earth metals offers scientists very promising prospects.

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As an example, they cite advances in HAMR technology, which involves heat-assisted magnetic recording. This allows data to be stored faster and more efficiently than before. Currently, metal alloys containing platinum, iron or cobalt are used in HAMR. By using rare earth metals instead, the entire process could be improved.

The biggest unknown about the German scientists’ latest advances is whether the changes caused by the laser pulses will be long-lasting. If they turn out to be short-lived, the scale of success will be smaller than it currently appears. However, the potential of the approach seems very large.