Insights from pure mathematics are lending new insights to material physics, which could aid in development of new devices and sensors. Now an international team of physicists has discovered that applying a magnetic field to a non-magnetic metal made it conduct 70% more electricity, even though basic physics principles would have predicted the opposite.
"We never expected that magnetoresistance could be lowered even further in the compound we tested, because in theory it should have increased," says Kyoto University study author Shingo Yonezawa.
Applying a magnetic field to metals affects how well they are able to conduct electricity. Resistance arising from the magnetic field—magnetoresistance—is used in contexts like writing data in hard discs. Because of its wide application potential, material physicists are constantly striving to find new materials that show large-scale magnetoresistance.
Exposing a non-magnetic metal to a magnetic field typically increases its resistance and reduces the amount of electric current that is able to pass through it. Researchers at Kyoto University and the National Institute for Materials Science, in collaboration with researchers at National High-Magnetic Field Laboratory in the US, observed otherwise, however; when they applied a magnetic field to the compound PdCoO2, its resistance actually decreased, consequently increasing electrical current.
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