Researchers in Japan and Germany have discovered that the north and south poles of an iron nanomagnet can be controlled by applying electrical voltage to the magnet, paving the way toward the production of ecologically sound computers.
The research results produced by Chiba University researcher Toyokazu Yamada and a team of German researchers were published in the Nov. 1 online issue of the British science journal “Nature Nanotechnology.”
Personal computers and other information terminals store information by controlling the direction of a magnet’s north and south poles through a magnetic field. In order to create a magnetic field, it is necessary to apply an electrical current through a copper coil, which requires a great deal of electrical power and inevitably produces heat.
Heat is not released in the case of iron nanomagnets, however, because its north and south poles are controlled by electrical voltage and not electrical power.
“Iron is an inexpensive material, which makes it practical,” says Yamada. “We currently consume a lot of electrical power to store information, and spend additional power to run fans that cool down our computers. Computers that do not produce heat would be more environmentally friendly.”
