Two dimensional materials have drawn intense interest because their electronic and magnetic properties could power future technologies. Scientists have traditionally treated these two behaviors as separate. Engineers at Illinois Grainger Engineering have now shown that they are connected by the same underlying mathematics.
In a study published in Physical Review X, researchers from The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign demonstrated how specially designed two dimensional magnetic systems can follow the same equations that describe mobile electrons in graphene. This mathematical connection could influence the design of radiofrequency devices and also provide researchers with a powerful new way to analyze and engineer these materials.
“It’s not at all obvious that there is an analogy between 2D electronics and 2D magnetic behaviors, and we’re still amazed at how well this analogy works,” said Bobby Kaman, the study’s lead author. “2D electronics are very well studied thanks to the discovery of graphene, and now we’ve shown that a not-so-well-studied class of materials obeys the same fundamental physics.”
