An international research team led by Forschungszentrum Jülich has succeeded in visualizing magnetism inside solids with unprecedented precision. Using a newly developed method, the scientists were able to image the finest building blocks of magnetism directly at the atomic level. They have published their findings in the journal Nature Materials.

Magnetism is an integral part of our everyday lives—it is found in electric motors, loudspeakers, and the storage media of modern computers. It is generated by the movement and spin of electrons. Previous techniques could only measure these properties to a limited extent and often only on the surface of materials. The team led by Dr. Hasan Ali and Prof. Rafal E. Dunin-Borkowski has now developed a new method using a state-of-the-art electron microscope to measure magnetic properties at a previously unattainable resolution.

“Our technique allows us to visualize the magnetic properties within a material with atomic precision,” explains Dr. Hasan Ali, first author of the study. “This enables us to observe how the movement and spin of electrons behave in the crystal lattice.”