Magnets

Two permanent magnets are tracked with magnetic field sensors. MIT engineers have devised an algorithm for high-speed tracking of any number of magnets, with significant implications for augmented reality and prosthesis control.

Algorithm may improve brain-controlled prostheses and exoskeletons

An improved method for magnet tracking enables high-speed wireless tracking through various materials.

November 18, 2019

$The repeating patterns in a snowflake are a classic example of beautiful, geometric fractals. Now MIT scientists have discovered fractal-like patterns in the magnetic configurations of a quantum material for the first time.$

Scientists discover fractal patterns in a quantum material

The X-ray-focusing lens used in the experiment is based on a design used in lighthouses for centuries.

October 16, 2019

MIT physics graduate student Dahlia Klein (left) and postdoc David MacNeill showed that magnetic order and stacking order are very strongly linked in two-dimensional magnets such as chromium chloride and chromium iodide, giving engineers a tool to vary the material’s magnetic properties.

Controlling 2-D magnetism with stacking order

MIT researchers discover why magnetism in certain materials is different in atomically thin layers and their bulk forms.

September 30, 2019

MIT chemists have enhanced the resolution of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), which should allow more rapid and detailed study of proteins such as the beta amyloid protein that accumulates in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.

Enhanced NMR reveals chemical structures in a fraction of the time

Technique could yield insights into complex proteins involved in Alzheimer’s and other diseases.

January 18, 2019

Illustration shows how hydrogen ions (red dots), controlled by an electric voltage, migrate through an intermediate material to change the magnetic properties of an adjacent magnetic layer(shown in green).

Study opens route to ultra-low-power microchips

Innovative approach to controlling magnetism could lead to next-generation memory and logic devices.

November 12, 2018

MIT physicists have now found a way to significantly boost thermoelectricity’s potential by using metal, heat, and magnetic fields to produce energy.

Turning up the heat on thermoelectrics

New materials, heated under high magnetic fields, could produce record levels of energy, model shows.

May 25, 2018

Robert Griffin awarded Richard R. Ernst Prize in Magnetic Resonance

Griffin honored for pioneering contributions to high-resolution solid state nuclear magnetic resonance and its applications to biological systems.

July 7, 2017

“My upbringing fostered the desire to tackle big problems that have a global impact," says MIT grad student Julien Barber. "Fusion fits the bill of a global remedy for both energy needs and some environmental problems. It’s trying to change the game.”

Julien Barber: Protecting magnets and the environment

Master's candidate explores ways to cool high-temperature superconductors used in fusion research.

March 27, 2017

MIT professor of physics Senthil Todadri seeks to understand unusual metals that defy the textbook description. “We’ve been making slow but steady progress, not just I, myself, but the community as a whole, but I would really like that progress to accelerate,” he says.

Faculty highlight: Senthil Todadri

A quest to understand superconductivity leads MIT theoretical physicist Senthil Todadri to discoveries about new magnetic materials called quantum spin liquids.

February 6, 2017