Ohio State University: Magnets Can Control Sound, Heat

The Ohio State University has released details about a project with magnets its researchers have been working on. According to their work, magnets are able control both heat and sound waves — something recently detailed in the journal Nature Materials, and the first time such information has been proven. Said one of the researchers, this experiment has added "a new dimension to our understanding of acoustic waves", and that using magnets researchers are able to "steer" both heat and sound waves.

In the experiment recently detailed, the researchers are said to have decreased the heat in a semiconductor by 12-percent using a magnetic field about the size of what you'd get from a medical MRI. In doing so, the researchers were the first to prove that acoustic phonons are magnetic to some degree — a property the study's lead author Hyungyu Jin said the researchers believe "are present in any solid".

The problem at this point is that very large magnets are required in order to control the aforementioned phonons — in the case of this study, 7-tesla magnets were used, and so no practical applications will be coming "any time soon".

Still, it was very difficult to prove that heat and sound can be controlled with magnets, making it a milestone discovery that will lead to additional work. Among that additional work will be tests on whether it is possible to deflect sound waves to the side using the large magnets and their related magnetic fields.

SOURCE: OSU