Layers of materials stacked atoms at a time have startling electromagnetic properties: they could become lightweight magnets, or superconductors at room temperature.
These are vital to many green energy technologies, including high-strength, lightweight magnets used in wind turbines, as well as military applications.
In recent decades, the demand for neodymium has increased sharply, a result of its usefulness in producing the compact, lightweight magnets used in devices like computer hard drives and audio system speakers.
Again it is used to dye glass, especially for making lasers, but perhaps its most important use is in making powerful yet lightweight magnets.
A utility scale wind turbine uses more than a ton of heavy-duty and lightweight magnets, 700 pounds of which is neodymium.
A lightweight Halbach magnet system for use in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) studies on drill cores was designed and built.
That is a sizable, additional cost for buyers of neodymium, a rare earth used to make lightweight, powerful magnets essential to technologies including giant wind turbines, gasoline-electric cars and Apple iPhones.
If the feat can be repeated with cheaper organics such as plastics--a big if--it could pave the way for lightweight flexible magnets that could revolutionize everything from computer data storage to what we use to pin photos to our refrigerators.
Neodymium magnets are lightweight, but they still have a repulsive force-to-weight ratio of 300-to-1 300-to-1 300-to-1kilogram) magnet could repel at least 300 pounds (136 kilograms) of force.
In such systems the ADRs require lightweight, low-current superconducting magnets.
