When disordered magnetic materials are cooled to just the right temperature, something interesting happens. The spins of their atoms 'freeze' and lock into place in a static pattern, exhibiting cooperative behavior not usually displayed.
When you heat a material, the rise in temperature increases the energy in that material. In the case of magnets, this increases the motion of the spins. But the opposite also occurs: When you cool down a magnet, the spins slow.
For spin glasses, freezing temperature is the point at which the spin glass behaves more like a conventional ferromagnet. Led by physicist Benjamin Verlhac of Radboud University, a team of scientists wanted to probe how neodymium behaves under changing temperatures. Interestingly, they found that raising the temperature of neodymium from -268 degrees Celsius to -265 degrees Celsius induced the freeze state usually seen when cooling a spin glass.
It's possible, the researchers said, that neodymium has certain correlations in its spin glass state that are dependent on temperature. Raising the temperature weakens these, and also therefore the frustration, allowing the spins to settle into an alignment. Further investigation could reveal the mechanism behind this odd behavior in which order emerges from disorder with the addition of energy; the researchers note this has implications ranging far beyond physics.Khajetoorians explained"If we ultimately can model how these materials behave, this could also be extrapolated to the behavior of a wide range of other materials."
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