Physicists caught the spin of an electron by Zivka Deleva

Another big day for the physicists! They have succeeded to capture the first images of the spinning of the electrons using a special microscope. To be more precise to the readers, the spin is one of the most important characteristics of the electrons, together with charge and mass. It describes the direction that the electron takes – up or down. A lot of scientists by far have been skeptical about the possibility for the spin to be seen in individual atoms. The study was done by physicists from Ohio University and the University of Hamburg in Germany, and was published by the journal “Nature Nanotechnology”. The scientist used a microscope to follow the ch! ange of the spin of electrons in cobalt atoms. This metal in has 27 protons and the same number of electrons. The microscope had a iron-coated tip. The images showed that the atoms appeared as a single protrusion if the spin direction was upward and double protrusion when the spin was with the opposite direction. This discovery can be very influential on the development of the nanoscale magnetic storage, on quantum computers, as well. "Different directions in spin can mean different states for data storage. The memory devices of current computers involve tens of thousands of atoms. In the future, we may be able to use one atom and change the power of the computer by the thousands" - said Saw-Wai Hla, an associate professor of physics and astronomy in Ohio University's Nanoscale and Quantum Phenomena Institute and one of the primary researchers on the study. One of the professors of the University of Hamburg, Andre Kubetzka said that to take an image of the spin, the team ! used a manganese surface with a spin that allowed the scientis! ts to ma nipulate the spin of the atoms that were experimented. What happens when few smart guys gather together in one lab and have one goal, to go deeper in the knowledge?

by Zivka Deleva for Cantell TV (http://cantell.tv)

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