Special magnet special magnet

1993/10/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Fisika

The magnet without metal is theoretically impossible, but this is what scientists Andre Rassat and his colleagues have discovered in Paris. The magnet is an organic compound formed by carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen. It is a molecular crystal organized regularly and orderly by the basic organic molecule.

This magnet needs a low temperature to maintain its characteristics, with a maximum of 1.5 K, that is, a grade t’medio higher than absolute zero. From there it does not have a ferromagnetic behavior, or what is the same, it stops being a magnet. Although the temperature is very low, it is the most “hot” organic magnet that has been found so far.

The magnet obtained by Andre Rassat and his companions was not achieved by chance, but by many efforts. In fact, they have long been trying to get molecular crystals with magnetic properties. These characteristics come from two groups NO. Each of them is formed by an atom of nitrogen and an oxygen atom, located in the basic molecule of the crystal.

Each of these groups has NO magnetic moment and behaves as an elemental magnet. The problem has been the obtaining of molecules by synthesis, but so that they accumulate periodically in the crystal and combine geometrically the magnetic moments of each group NO.