Non Technical Summary (2004-2006)
Non Technical Summary (2002-2004)
I am researching very small magnets by developing scientific tools which
use x-rays. The trend of cramming more and more songs onto an iPod may
begin to slow in the next ten years. Each song is stored in millions of
tiny magnets, and each magnet is assigned like a compass needle with a
specific direction for each musical note. As the magnets get smaller they
can become unstable and are prone to point in random directions. That is,
they forget what they are supposed to remember. I am part of a team of
researchers developing a new microscopic method that can take highly
magnified pictures of magnets and the data they store. As an applied
physicist I have both the interest in magnetism of physicist and the
excitement for designing a new microscope of an engineer. In the next
five years the microscope my team develops will be used by scientist to
capture images of unstable magnets during the instant they change
direction. These images will help to improve the fundamental
understanding of magnetism. It will be applicable for many scientific
investigations of microscopic events that happen in fractions of a second.