|Large Magnetization at Carbon Surfaces| From organic matter to
pencil lead, carbon is a versatile element. Now, another use has
been found: magnets. One would not expect pure carbon to be
magnetic, but for more than ten years scientists have suspected
that carbon can be made to be magnetic by doping it with
nonmagnetic materials, changing its order ever so slightly.
Years ago, the first x-ray images obtained using the scanning
transmission x-ray microscope at ALS Beamline 11.0.2 provided
valuable insight into how proton irradiation can cause carbon to
transform into a ferromagnetic material. Now, researchers are
using x-ray spectroscopy at ALS Beamline 4.0.2 to study the
magnetism of proton-irradiated graphite surfaces in order to
understand the effects of hydrogen (i.e. protons) on the
electronic structure of carbon. In studying the properties of
electrons responsible for magnetic order in graphite,
researchers found that a very large magnetic moment is
essentially switched on when hydrogen atoms are incorp