Posted on 04/03/2015 5:40:51 PM PDT by BenLurkin
An experiment conducted has revealed an unlikely behavior in a class of materials called frustrated magnets, addressing a long-debated question about the nature of these discontented quantum materials.
The researchers tested the frustrated magnets -- so-named because they should be magnetic at low temperatures but aren't -- to see if they exhibit a behavior called the Hall Effect. When a magnetic field is applied to an electric current flowing in a conductor such as a copper ribbon, the current deflects to one side of the ribbon. This deflection, first observed in 1879 by E.H. Hall, is used today in sensors for devices such as computer printers and automobile anti-lock braking systems.
Because the Hall Effect happens in charge-carrying particles, most physicists thought it would be impossible to see such behavior in non-charged, or neutral, particles like those in frustrated magnets. "To talk about the Hall Effect for neutral particles is an oxymoron, a crazy idea," said N. Phuan Ong, Princeton's Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencecodex.com ...
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