University scientists discover graphene can be magnetised

Graphene, the world’s thinnest and strongest material, is a sheet of carbon atoms arranged in a chicken-wire structure. In its pristine state, it exhibits no signs of the conventional magnetism usually associated with such materials as iron or nickel.

Dr Irina Grigorieva, the project’s lead researcher and a senior lecturer at Manchester University, told The Engineer: ’Our study demonstrates that one can use relatively simple modifications to make graphene magnetic, adding magnetism to the already long list of this material’s amazing properties.

‘This is remarkable because magnetism is usually associated with the so-called transition metals, such as iron or nickel, and has not been expected to occur in a material made up from just carbon atoms,’ she explained.

The Manchester researchers, including Nobel prize winner Prof Sir Andre Geim, took non-magnetic graphene and then either ‘peppered’ it with other non-magnetic atoms such as fluorine or removed some carbon atoms from the chicken-wire structure by knocking them out with energetic ions (protons). The empty spaces, called vacancies, and added atoms all turned out to be magnetic.