A molecule-sized magnetic sensor
By Oli Usher, on 26 January 2015
This image shows a scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) image of a molecule of iron phtalocyanine, separated from an underlying layer of copper by a thin barrier of copper nitride.
The image is part of a new piece of research just published by UCL scientists. The iron phtalocyanine molecule forms part of a tiny magnetic sensor which is sufficiently sensitive that it can detect molecule-sized magnetic fields. This technology could allow far smaller hard disks and new computer memory designs.