At Small Scales, Tug-of-War Between Electrons Can Lead to Magnetism Under Surprising Circumstances (IMAGE)

University at Buffalo

At Small Scales, Tug-of-War Between Electrons Can Lead to Magnetism Under Surprising Circumstances

Caption

A quantum dot’s two mobile electrons will actually influence the manganese spins differently. That's because while one mobile electron prefers to stay in the middle of the quantum dot, the other prefers to locate further toward the edges. As a result, manganese atoms in different parts of the quantum dot receive different messages about which way to align their spins. In the "tug-of-war" that ensues, the mobile electron that interacts more intensely with the manganese atoms "wins," aligning more spins and causing the quantum dot, as a whole, to be magnetic.

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University at Buffalo

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